Stefano Coletti

He is the first Monégasque driver since Louis Chiron (1931) to have won a race in Monaco.

Born in La Colle, Monaco, Coletti enjoyed a successful karting career prior to moving into single-seater racing.

Stefano Coletti (born 6 April 1989) is a Monégasque professional racing driver who raced for SMP Racing in the European Le Mans Series.

His sister Alexandra Coletti is an alpine skier.

In 2003, he finished as runner-up in the Italian Open Masters ICA–Junior category before winning the Andrea Margutti Trophy and European Championship ICA–Junior titles in 2004.

In 2005, Coletti moved up to Formula racing, joining Eifelland Racing to contest the Formula BMW ADAC championship, where he finished eighteenth in the standings.

He also took part in the Formula BMW World Final in Bahrain for ASL Team Mücke Motorsport, finishing in twenty-fifth place.

He continued in the championship in 2006, taking four podium places, including a single victory, to finish seventh in the standings.

He also took part in four Formula BMW USA races, winning three of them to finish the season in fifth place, despite missing a large proportion of the championship.

Coletti once again competed in the Formula BMW World Final, held at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo, where he finished in third place, behind Mika Mäki and race winner Christian Vietoris.

In August 2006, Coletti made his debut in the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 series, driving for the Cram Competition and Motopark Academy teams, although he failed to score a point in any of the six races he entered.

In 2007, he joined the Spanish Epsilon Euskadi team to contest both the Eurocup and Italian Formula Renault 2.0 championships.

He finished fourth in the Eurocup standings after taking a win at the Hungaroring and two further podium places, whilst in the Italian series he took two victories – both at Misano – to finish in tenth place.

Coletti moved up to the Formula 3 Euro Series for the 2008 season, joining the French Signature-Plus team.

However, he left the team after the first four races after being dropped from the Red Bull Driver Development scheme.

Coletti missed the next round of the series at Pau before joining Prema Powerteam, who he remained with for the rest of the season.

He took a best race result of fourth to finish the year in twentieth position.

He also took part in the Masters of Formula 3 and Macau Grand Prix non-championship races, but retired from both events.

In November 2008, Coletti sampled Formula Renault 3.5 Series machinery for the first time, testing for RC Motorsport at Valencia alongside former GP2 Series driver Andy Soucek.

In January 2009, Prema announced that Coletti would be staying with the team for the 2009 season.

At the first round of the year in Hockenheim, Coletti qualified on the front row of the grid before going on to win the opening race of the season.

The following month, Coletti took part in the Masters of Formula 3 event held at Zandvoort, qualifying in fourth position before finishing the race in third place, behind Finns Mika Mäki and race winner Valtteri Bottas.

Coletti was involved in a controversial incident after the first race at the Norisring.

Having finished third to move into third in the championship, Coletti had an altercation with race winner Jules Bianchi.

Coletti felt that Bianchi had said "bad words" to him, and struck the ART Grand Prix driver and championship leader.

Coletti was then stripped of his third place, and was excluded from the rest of the meeting.

Coletti failed to score points after the Oschersleben rounds, and finished tenth in the championship.

On 15 May 2009 it was announced that Coletti would race for Prema Powerteam in the Monaco round of the 2009 Formula Renault 3.5 Series, replacing Frankie Provenzano.

He originally finished in eleventh place, but after Marco Barba received a 25-second penalty, Coletti was promoted into the final points paying position in tenth.

Coletti made his GP2 debut in 2009 at Valencia when he replaced Davide Valsecchi at Durango.

He suffered a fraught first meeting in the series, receiving three drive-through penalties.

In race one he received one for jumping the start and one for crossing the white line at the pit lane exit, before retiring from the race.

In race two he stalled on the grid and was penalised for starting from the grid instead of the pitlane; he collided with Dani Clos before taking this penalty.

In his third GP2 race, at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Coletti crashed heavily with two laps remaining causing the race to finish under safety car conditions.

He escaped with compressed vertebrae and minor bruising, missing the following day's sprint race as his car's monocoque was written off by the impact.

Coletti returned to the series for a full season in 2010, driving alongside Greg Mansell at Comtec Racing.

He took five podium finishes on his way to sixth place in the championship.

Coletti also contested fourteen races of the inaugural GP3 Series season for the Tech 1 Racing team, replacing Daniel Juncadella after the first round of the championship.

His team-mates were variously Doru Sechelariu, Jean-Éric Vergne, Jim Pla and the returning Juncadella.

Coletti finished the year ninth in the championship; the best-placed of the Tech 1 drivers.