Friday, 3 May 2013

ROAD RACER RIO


Rio Haryanto who was born in Solo, Central Java on 22 January 1993 is an Indonesian racing driver and he is the youngest driver in the world who has tried test drive Formula 1. He currently competed for Barwa Addax team in GP2 Series. Rio began his car racing career in his native continent, competing in three Asian based series during 2008 : Asian Formula Renault Challenge, Formula Asia 2.0 and Formula BMW Pacific. He was most competitive in Formula Asia 2.0 series, winning two races to finish third overall in the championship behind expatriate European drivers Felix Rosenqvist and Matthias Beche.

In 2009 he again competed in a variety of series, including Australian Driver's Championship and Asian Formula Renault Challenge once more. His main focus this year, however, was Formula BMW Pacific championship, which he dominated with 11 victories from the 15 races (although five of these races were won outright by invitational drivers who were not entered in the championship), driving for Malaysian Meritus team. This included the perfect run of four outright victories, pole positions and fastest laps in the four consecutive races held at his home circuit Sentul. He also competed in around of the equivalent European FBMW Series, himself a guest driver on  this occasion. 

Rio stepped up to the more competitive European racing scene full-time for 2010 by joining Manor Racing team for Formula One supporting GP3 Series. His three team-mates during the season were James Jakes, Adrien Tambay and Adrian Quaife-Hobbs. In an impressive first season of this level, he won a race at Istanbul Park and took two further podium placings to finish fifth place in the driver's championship, the leading manor driver. His form was 'one of surprises of the season', according to Autosport magazine. He remained with the team for 2011, now badged as Marussia Manor Racing, alongside Quaife-Hobbs and Matias Laine. Despite increasing his victory count to two, with wins at Nürburgring and Hungaroring, his inconsistency -including a run of seven races without scoring points at the start of the year- saw him slip to seventh place in the championship, behind Quaife-Hobbs. Both of his victories were in rainy conditions, giving him something of a reputation as a wet-weather specialist.



In addition to his GP3 duties, Rio also drove for DAMS team in Auto GP series, competing in all but one round of the championship as it clashed with GP3 schedule. Driving alongside Sergey Afanasyef and part-time Tambay, he took a win at the circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia and finished seventh in the driver's standings. The efforts of Rio, Afanasyef, Tambay and Rio's substitute Kevin Korjus, were enough for DAMS to win the team's championship.

Rio made his GP2 series debut with DAMS at non-championship season finale at Yas Marina in 2011. He has the series full-time for 2012 with Marussia-backed Carlin team, where he partners Max Chilton. He is the first Indonesia to compete at this level motorsport since Ananda Mikola competed in International Formula 3000 during 2000 and 2001. In his first season of GP2, Rio secured a single fastest lap, a single pole position, in wet conditions, at Spa, confirming his reputation as a wet-weather specialist an a best race finish of fifth in the feature race at Valencia, securing 14th place at the championship at season's end. He will race in 2013 GP2 Series for Barwa Addax Team alongside with team-mate Jake Rosenzweig.



Rio has been linked to Virgin Racing/Marussia Formula One team since his first GP3 season with Manor in 2010, as he has driven for junior teams with its backing since then. In the autumn of that year, he won the right to test with Virgin at the end of 2010 season due to his finishing position as the highest ranked Manor driver in GP3 final standings. He tested for Virgin in Abu Dhabi on 16 November. Suffering gearbox problems, he posted the slowest time of the thirteen runners in the morning session. He did not receive the prize test in 2011 because team-mate Adrian Quaife-Hobbs beat him in the standings on this occasion.

Rio and 2012 GP2 Series team-mate Max Chilton drove for Marussia in first young driver tests of 2012, held in-season at Silverstone. Running over the course of two days, Rio completed three hundred kilometers of testing, satisfying one of the conditions to be eligible for a superlicence and becoming the first Indonesian driver to qualify for one.  

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