Jarno Trulli drives for Lotus F1 in 2010

Teams
Minardi
Prost
Jordan
Renault
Toyota
Lotus

Jarno Trulli had an extremely successful karting career, after which a brief spell in Formula Three was enough to propel him into F1.

He began karting in 1984 at the age of nine and quickly began collecting cups. It culminated in 1995 with wins in the Italian Kart Championship and World Kart Championship, along with his second triumph in the Ayrton Senna memorial cup.

Trulli also started racing in the German Formula Three championship that year, joining the championship with the KMS team at the fifth round. He won the final two races of the season to place fourth in the championship behind Norberto Fontana, Ralf Schumacher (later to be Trulli’s team mate at Toyota) and Max Angelili.

Minardi and Prost

With six wins from 15 races he claimed the title the following year and made his F1 début for Minardi the following year. He couldn’t do much with the uncompetitive car besides out-qualify and out-race team mate Ukyo Katayama, which he usually did.

By the French Grand Prix Trulli had moved up into the Prost team, taking over from Olivier Panis who had broken his leg. Trulli seized the opportunity and scored points on his third race for the team. At his final appearance for Prost at the A1-Ring he qualified third and led convincingly before his Mugen-Honda engine blew up. But an impression had been made and team boss Alain Prost got Trulli’s name on a contract for 1998.

Jordan and Renault

But the team fell into rapid decline, the only highlight being a brilliant second for Trulli at the Nürburgring in 1999. He switched to Jordan for 2000 but although he qualified well (taking second on the grid for the Monaco Grand Prix) unreliability and a string of collisions spoiled his year.

Further unreliability in 2001 prompted Trulli to change teams again, joining Renault for 2002 alongside Jenson Button. The pair were a close match on performance but things got tougher for Trulli when partnered with Fernando Alonso the following season. Alonso scored the team’s maiden victory at the Hungaroring that year and headed Trulli in the points standings 55-33.

The 2004 season started better for Trulli and in the sixth round at Monaco he finally claimed his first Grand Prix win with a faultless drive from pole position while Alonso crashed out. But behind the scenes relations with team boss Flavio Briatore had deteriorated – and they got worse when Rubens Barrichello took third place off Trulli at the penultimate corner in the French Grand Prix.

Trulli’s head dropped and the team dropped him before the end of the year. But he made an almost immediate return with his new team, Toyota, before the year was out.

Toyota

Trulli celebrates after a podium finish in France in 2008

At first it looked as though the well-funded Japanese outfit was poised to deliver on its obvious potential. Trulli began 2005 with second places in the Malaysian and Bahrain Grands Prix. He and Ralf Schumacher scored 88 points and Toyota ended the year fourth overall – but it fell into decline over the next two seasons.

Following the departure of technical director Mike Gascoyne Toyota, despite having one of the largest budgets in the sport, looked increasingly as though they didn’t know what they were doing. Trulli scored 15 points in 2006 and eight in 2007, leaving many to question Toyota’s ability to compete in Formula 1.

The TF108 proved more competitive in 2008 and Trulli got into the points on several occasions. At Magny-Cours he reached the podium for the first time in three years, grabbing third place while running a special livery to commemorate the death of team founder Ove Andersson.

Toyota started 2009 looking strong. Despite being moved to the back of the grid at Melbourne for a technical infringement during qualitying, Trulli raced through the field to finish third (following a dispute with McLaren which ended with Lewis Hamilton being disqualified).

Further evidence of their potential came at Bahrain, where Trulli headed the grid with team mate Glock alongside. But Glock beat him into the first corner to lead the race, and poor strategy after that cost Trulli the chance of victory.

From that point on the TF109 rarely looked as competitive again. An upswing in performance late in the year allowed Trulli to take second place at Suzuka. But his last two races were disappointing: crashing out on the first lap at Interlagos having qualified well, and being beaten at Yas Island by Kamui Kobayashi, the substitute driver standing in for Trulli’s injured team mate.

Worse was to follow within days of the season ending as Toyota confirmed their withdrawal from F1.

Lotus

Now one of the most experienced drivers in F1, with over 200 starts to his name, Trulli quickly found a seat for 2010, joining the new Lotus team.

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Images (C) Lotus, Toyota F1 World