Giedo van der Garde

Infobox racing driver
name = Giedo van der Garde


pixels =
caption =
nationality = flagicon|Netherlands Dutch
date of birth = Birth date and age|1985|4|25
place of birth = Rhenen, The Netherlands
current series = World Series by Renault
first year = 2007
current team = P1 Motorsport
car number =
former teams = Victory Engineering
starts = 28
wins = 5
poles = 2
fastest laps = 4
best finish = 1st
year = 2008
prev series = Formula Three Euroseries
prev series years = 2004-2006
titles = World Series by Renault
title years = 2008
awards =
award years =

Giedo van der Garde (born April 25, 1985 in Rhenen, The Netherlands) is a Dutch racing driver.

Career

Karting

Van der Garde has a successful karting career, winning the Dutch championship in 1998. In Super A he was best rookie in 2001 and world champion in 2002. cite web | title = Who's Who: Giedo van der Garde | publisher = F1Fanatic.co.uk | date = 2007 | url = http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/f1-information/whos-who/whos-who-g/giedo-van-der-garde/ | accessdate =2007-07-21]

Formula Renault

The following year he joined the Formula Renault 2000 Championship and finished sixth, driving for Dutch team Van Amersfoort Racing. On the strength of his performance he became part of the Renault F1 Driver Development programme.

Formula Three

He joined the Formula Three Euroseries in 2004 with Signature-Plus but after finishing the year ninth he was dropped by Renault Driver Development. A move to Team Rosberg for 2005 yielded another ninth in the series.

For 2006 he joined the ASM team, which had dominated the season in 2005 with Lewis Hamilton and Adrian Sutil. The team claimed the top two places in the championship once more in 2006 - but it was van der Garde's team mates Paul di Resta and Sebastian Vettel who topped the leader board. The Dutchman ended the year sixth with a single victory. During the year he was easily in the top four fastest drivers, but bad luck and mechanical problems, like not even starting the Bugatti Circuit race from pole because he broke down on the warm-up lap for the race, prevented him from making the mark in figures rather than 'what if's'.

Formula One

Van der Garde was brought into the McLaren Young Drivers Programme in 2006.

uper Aguri

On December 15 2006, van der Garde was confirmed as the Super Aguri Formula One team's test and reserve driver for the 2007 season. [cite news| title =Super Aguri names Van der Garde| publisher =Grandprix.com| url =http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns17872.html| date =2006-12-15| accessdate =2006-12-16]

pyker F1

On February 1 2007, van der Garde was unexpectedly announced by Spyker F1 as the team's test and reserve driver. [cite news| title =Van der Garde leaves Aguri for Spyker| publisher =Autosport.com| url =http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/56551| date =2007-02-01| accessdate =2007-02-01] On February 2 2007 Super Aguri confirmed their belief their existing contract with van der Garde was still in force, stating "Super Aguri F1 Team has a valid contract with Giedo van der Garde to drive for the team in the position of Friday and Test Driver for the 2007 FIA Formula One World Championship. The contract was submitted by the SAF1 Team to the Contracts Recognition Board on 23rd January 2007." [cite news| title =Super Aguri confirm van der Garde contract | publisher =Formula1.com| url =http://www.formula1.com/news/5601.html| date =2007-02-02| accessdate =2007-02-02]

However, on June 20 2007 van der Garde tested at Silverstone with Spyker, indicating the contract dispute has been resolved. [cite news| title =An interesting tester at Spyker| publisher =grandprix.com| url =http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns19311.html| date =2007-06-25| accessdate =2007-06-25]

Spyker originally intended van der Garde to be the team's Friday driver at the Australian Grand Prix, but he failed to obtain the necessary superlicence from the FIA in time.

World Series by Renault

On December 17 2006, van der Garde also announced that he will drive in the World Series by Renault for Victory Engineering, a team that works together with Carlin Motorsport, causing him to say he will work together again with Sebastian Vettel, his ASM teammate.

Giedo had podium positions in mind for the season, but even though he was the most consistent driver, always around 6th or 5th, he didn't win nor reach the podium. He finished the season 6th, 3rd in the Rookie of the year standings. He received several offers for tests in GP2, from teams like DAMS and Arden International. During his first tests, he impressed.

He eventually signed with P1 Motorsport to compete in the 2008 season

In the first race of the 2008 WSR season in Monza, Giedo managed to qualify on pole for the feature race. Due to regulations, he started 8th in the sprint race because of the reverse grid order in the spring race. He came through the field to clinch victory in the sprint race, and easily converted his pole position into a victory in the feature race to show his fine form in the start of the season.

In the second race in Spa-Francorchamps, he narrowly missed out on pole by 0.033 seconds after previously topping the tables at all training sessions. In the sprint race, Julien Jousse collided into him forcing Giedo into retiring from the race. Having qualified second for the feature race, he lost a position at the start. He immediately overtook Mikhail Aleshin on the first lap to regain his position, and later overtook Marco Bonanomi for the lead which he held to the checkered flag.

After this strong start to the season, Van der Garde was never headed in the championship and duly won it with two races remaining. [cite news| title =Van der Garde clinches title| publisher =autosport.com| url =http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/70988| date =2008-09-28| accessdate =2008-09-28]

GP2 Series

Van der Garde has signed to drive for the iSport International team in the 2008-09 GP2 Asia Series season, with an option on the 2009 GP2 Series season. [cite news| title =Van der Garde joins iSport for Asia Series| publisher =gp2.gpupdate.net| url =http://gp2.gpupdate.net/en/news/2008/10/02/van-der-garde-joins-isport-for-asia-series/| date =2008-10-02| accessdate =2008-10-02]

Career Summary

* Season in progress.

References

* [http://www.driverdb.com/racingdriver263.html Career details] from "driverdb.com", retrieved December 16 2006.