Lucas Tucci di Grassi (born 11 August 1984 in São Paulo) is a Brazilian Formula One racing driver who drove for Virgin Racing in the 2010 Formula One season. He does not currently have a Formula One drive for 2011.
Career
Early career
Di Grassi's career in karting peaked in 2000, with a 5th place in the Formula A World Championship. Di Grassi began his formula racing career in Brazilian Formula Renault in 2002, finishing as runner-up to champion Sérgio Jimenez.
Formula Three (2003–06)
In 2003 Di Grassi stepped up to Formula Three, driving a Dallara F301 Mugen-Honda for Avallone Motorsport in Formula Three Sudamericana. He finished as the championship runner-up behind Danilo Dirani, with one win and eleven other podium finishes. This came despite missing the last six races after suffering a major crash at the Curitiba round.
He also travelled to Europe to make four race starts in the F3 Euroseries with Prema Powerteam, achieving a best finish of fourth place. The following year, he made a permanent move to Europe and took a drive with Hitech Racing in the British F3 Championship. His season peaked with two wins, and he was classified in eighth place overall. Another of that year's highlights was a podium finish on his début at the Macau Grand Prix with Hitech.
In 2005, Di Grassi took another step up in a full-time return to the F3 Euroseries with Manor Motorsport. Against the dominant ASM pairing of Lewis Hamilton and Adrian Sutil he could only manage one win but ended the year third in the championship.
At the end of the season, Di Grassi returned to Macau, this time with Manor, and won the event from third on the grid, although runaway F3 Euroseries champion Hamilton missed the race.
GP2 Series (2006–09)
Di Grassi driving for Campos Grand Prix at the Silverstone round of the 2008 GP2 Series season
2006 brought Di Grassi to the next stage in his career: promotion to the GP2 Grand Prix support series with Team Durango. It was a modest debut season, however, with only 8 points and 17th place in the championship standings.
For 2007 he joined reigning champions ART Grand Prix. He scored points consistently throughout the season, failing to score only once in the first 13 races. Despite not winning a race in that time, it put him in contention for the championship along with iSport's Timo Glock.
He scored his first win of the year in the 14th round of the championship at Istanbul, and took the lead of the championship,[6] but Glock moved back ahead of him when he won the sprint race at the same event, and went on to win the title.
Di Grassi worked on testing the new-model GP2 car (to be used between 2008 and 2010), while testing for Renault F1. However, he resumed his GP2 career in 2008 by securing a drive at Campos Racing from round 4 onwards, replacing Ben Hanley. With three second places and one fourth place finish, he was the highest-scoring driver over the first two race meetings in which he took part. Two wins followed and he briefly looked set for a surprising championship challenge, before a final lap collision with Giorgio Pantano (who was disqualified for the incident) at Spa effectively ended his hopes. He finished an eventual third, ten points behind Pantano despite six fewer races.
He returned to the series for 2009 with Racing Engineering, and again finished third, finishing with the same number of points as he did in 2008.
Formula One
At the end of 2008, Di Grassi tested for the Honda Racing F1 Team alongside fellow Brazilian and GP2 rival Bruno Senna. Honda race driver Jenson Button tested a Honda at Circuit de Catalunya. Senna was just 0.3 seconds off and Di Grassi was 0.5 seconds off. Di Grassi was then sent a contract by Renault to join them as a test driver, becoming the third GP2 runner-up to join Renault as a test driver after fellow Brazilian Nelson Piquet, Jr. and Heikki Kovalainen.
Virgin (2010)
Di Grassi took his and the Virgin team's first race finish at the 2010 Malaysian Grand Prix.
Di Grassi joined Timo Glock at new team Virgin Racing for 2010. The team, originally called Manor, was rebranded when Virgin Group owner Richard Branson purchased a 20% stake. Di Grassi finished in 24th position in the championship, with a best race finish of 14th at the 2010 Malaysian Grand Prix.
In December, di Grassi won the Desafio Internacional das Estrelas, a karting event organised by Felipe Massa.
On 21 December 2010, di Grassi was left without a drive, after Virgin announced Jérôme d'Ambrosio to partner Glock for the 2011 season.
Racing record
Career summary
| Season | Series | Team | Races | Wins | Poles | F/Laps | Podiums | Points | Position |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Formula Renault 2.0 Brazil | G Force Motorsport | 10 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 137 | 2nd |
| 2003 | Formula Three Sudamericana | Avallone Motorsport | 12 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 11 | 164 | 2nd |
| Formula 3 Euroseries | Prema Powerteam | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 21st | |
| 2004 | British Formula 3 | Hitech Racing | 24 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 130 | 8th |
| Bahrain Super Prix | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | N/A | 19th | ||
| Macau Grand Prix | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | N/A | 3rd | ||
| Masters of Formula 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | N/A | 5th | ||
| 2005 | Formula 3 Euroseries | Manor Motorsport | 19 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 68 | 3rd |
| Macau Grand Prix | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | N/A | 1st | ||
| Masters of Formula 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | N/A | 3rd | ||
| 2006 | GP2 Series | Durango | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 17th |
| 2007 | GP2 Series | ART Grand Prix | 21 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 77 | 2nd |
| 2008 | GP2 Series | Barwa International Campos Team | 14 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 63 | 3rd |
| 2009 | GP2 Series | Racing Engineering | 20 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 8 | 63 | 3rd |
| 2010 | Formula One | Virgin Racing | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 24th |
(source:wikipedia)
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