Vitantonio Liuzzi is fast becoming the modern day journey man of Formula One. He has competed in four separate seasons, with three different teams, in 57 races, but has only has five points to his name.

In his youth he was widely regarded as one of the top karters of his generation. He won the karting world championship in 2001, beating Michael Schumacher at the German's home track in Kerpen on his way to victory. He quickly rose through the lower formula despite failing to win any titles in Formula Renault, German Formula 3 or the World Series by Nissan.

It was F3000 where he found his niche, taking best rookie honours in an impressive season in 2003. Pole position at Hungaroring was the highlight, Liuzzi out qualifying his nearest competitor by half a second having only completed nine laps at the circuit. In 2004 he won the championship, winning seven of the ten races - a record only matched by Juan Pablo Montoya and Nick Heidfeld.

Formula One was the next logical step and in 2005 he shared a Red Bull race seat with Christian Klien. Liuzzi got just four races compared to Klien's 13, having only managed to pick up one point in his brief stint as race driver. However, he was given a full race seat at Red Bull's junior team, Toro Rosso, in 2006 alongside Scott Speed. The team was using a year-old chassis and a restricted V10 engine (compared with unrestricted V8s in the other cars), but he out-performed his team mate and scored the outfit's only point of the season.

For 2007 Toro Rosso used the same chassis as Red Bull, but Liuzzi still struggled for results scoring just three points. Sebastian Vettel joined the team halfway through the season and soon got the best out of the car, scoring more points in his brief time than Liuzzi had in his whole career.

2008 saw him replaced by Sebastien Bourdais and forced to take a testing role at Force India. He didn't race again in F1 until 2009 when he replaced Giancarlo Fisichella, who had been recruited by Ferrari to sub for the injured Felipe Massa. An impressive home race at Monza was cruelly cut short by transmission failure but he failed to make an impact at the following four races.

In late November 2009 Force India confirmed that he would retain his race seat for the 2010 season.

Strengths and Weaknesses
A quick driver over one lap but has never really adapted his flamboyant karting style to suit an F1 car.

Career High
Scoring a point in his debut race in front of home fans at Imola.

Career Low
Crashing in his second and third races, scuppering his chance of a more permanent drive with Red Bull.

Quotes
"If I found myself without a drive at the end of 2007, it was most of all the fault of Gerhard Berger, who has never been a fan of mine, just like Adrian Newey, who in the past blocked my arrival as a regular Red Bull driver."

Liuzzi getting a little over optimistic about Toro Rosso's chances in its debut year, "Though it's our first season in Formula One, we see this is going to be a very exciting time and expect at least two podium finishes by season's end."

Trivia
He has more body piercing's than any other F1 driver. He currently has four in his left ear and one in his left eyebrow.

November 2009