Jarno Trulli | Profile of Italian F1 driver Jarno Trulli, stats, photos

Jarno Trulli

Team: Lotus
F1 Debut: 1997 - Australian Grand Prix

Jarno Trulli has the unusual distinction of going almost directly from Go Karts into Formula One. In 1995 Trulli won the Italian Go Karting Championship, his fifteenth major title. Sixteen months later he was getting ready for the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.

Jarno earned his early promotion into F1 with Minardi after utterly dominating the German Formula Three Championship. His rookie Grand Prix performances in 1997 were solid, but he really came to the fore later in the year when he replaced the injured Olivier Panis at Prost.

In his seventh race for Prost at the Austrian Grand Prix, Trulli qualified an incredible third position on the grid. It was a stunning achievement but he was expected to lose a few places to the regular front-runners during the opening laps, and more as the Grand Prix progressed. However, Jarno actually ended up leading the first 37 laps of the race and even pulled out a ten second gap to the field behind. Trulli was looking good for at least a podium finish until an engine failure robbed him of glory. To some Formula One fans a hero was born.

Unfortunately, Trulli's performances have always been inconsistent. If everything is working correctly he is unbeatable, but if something minor unsettles him or the car he can be a long way off the pace. Jarno won the 2004 Monaco Grand Prix by outdriving Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso, but is unable to perform like that each and every weekend. If his raw speed was consistent, Jarno Trulli would be a multiple World Champion by now.

Jarno stayed with Prost for two years but the only highlight was a podium in a rain effected Grand Prix at the Nurburgring. He was offered a Ferrari contract for 2000 but turned it down to avoid being cast as Michael Schumacher's understudy. That was a very bold decision for an Italian to make, but it almost certainly elongated Trulli's career.

Jarno moved to Jordan in 2000 instead of Ferrari but he failed to realise his potential due to the car's poor reliability. He was signed by Renault in 2002 where he spent three seasons with Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso as teammates. The final of those years was Jarno's most impressive as it included his solitary race win, and he was right on Alonso's pace. However, the team grew frustrated with Trulli's inconsistency when he lost third place on the last corner of the last lap of the French Grand Prix, and he ended up being sacked when those tensions escalated.

Trulli should have won a handful of races with Renault but was let down by his own mistakes and the car's mechanical failures.

Jarno was in the cockpit of a Toyota before the end of 2004 and stayed with the Japanese team until they withdrew from F1 last year. In that time he secured two pole positions and seven podiums (and even a fastest lap) but no race wins. He has now joined Lotus in the hope of extending his career for another few years, but Trulli's best days are probably behind him.

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