Jarno Trulli Sumar
Jarno won many World and Italian kart titles and Benetton boss, Flavio Briatore paid for him to enter into German Formula Three midway through 1995, where he won the remaining two races of the season for the KMS team.
Continuing on the same way in 1996, he easily took the title. His Formula One debut came in 1997, when once again, Flavio Briatore stepped in. Tarso Marques, the driver for Minardi was to be replaced, and Jarno took the drive. Racing in Australia,
he finished 9th after starting from 17th on the grid, but the season was hampered by mechanical failure, and lack of power.
Marques returned for the French Grand Prix, and Jarno moved to Prost, after Olivier Panis was injured at Montreal. He finished fourth in the German Grand prix, and shocked everyone by leading for more than half the race at Austria before his engine blew. He signed for Prost in 1998, and his best finish was sixth in Belgium.
The 99 season didn't see him fare much better although towards the end of the season there were some strong qualifying performances. Sadly, the engines' unreliability stopped him from proving what was so evident, that he had the talent, drive and passion that is necessary to succeed.
Eddie Jordan could see this and signed the young Italian to replace the retiring Damon Hill to partner Heinz-Harald Frentzen for the 2000 season. Here he put in some very strong drives, the only other driver that wasn't in a McLaren or a Ferrari to take a front row grid position throughout the entire year. However due to incidents involving other drivers or reliability problems with the EJ10,Jarno just couldn't manage to turn theses strong starts into point scoring finishes.
The 2001 championship produced a year of constant failures despite strong qualifying performances. Switching places with Giancarlo Fisichella at Renault for 2002, Jarno had hoped that he will finally get the opportunity to show the talent everyone knows he has. He finished the season with nine points overall, five behind teammate Jenson Button, the best results being fourth placed finishes in Monaco and Italy.
2003 saw Button leave the team and replaced by up and coming star Fernando Alonso. Despite finishing eighth in the 2003 championship and feeling slightly overshadowed by his teammate, Jarno Trulli started the 2004 in style.
Trulli's 2004 season can divided neatly into two. The first part of the season ran from the Australian to French Grand prix in which Trulli excelled. The second part of his season was Silverstone to Monza where Trulli simply looked out of his depth in the sport. It is hard to explain how a driver that dominated the Monaco Grand Prix from Pole Position in May could be sacked by his team a few short months later after failing to show any pace in a reasonable Renault package. But this is what happened.
Renault made clear mid-season that Trulli would not be with the team in 2005. Despite a Pole Position at Spa Francorchamps, his relationship with former manager and team boss Flavio Briatore deteriorated. Following the Italian Grand Prix Trulli was released from his contract and joined Toyota for the final two races of the season. Despite all this, Trulli still managed to finish in sixth position in the championship.
2005 marked the first full season as a Toyota driver and Trulli made the best of his opportunity. As was the case in 2004, Trulli had a fantastic start to the season, claiming three podium positions in the first five races, while the tail end of the season was a disappointment. The TF105 was an impressive package and Trulli made best of his supreme qualifying efforts to help Toyota up to fourth position in the Constructors' Championship and until the final races of the season, Trulli showed the way to his new team-mate Ralf Schumacher.
Trulli would however lose out to Schumacher as the duo took sixth and seventh positions in the championship respectively. Looking ahead to 2006 and Trulli will be looking to move Toyota to the top step of the podium.
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