Santander having that slightly smug tone in their new advert is...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
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 budgetsin 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.
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