Jarno Trulli

His parents were motorsport fans and named their son after Jarno Saarinen, the Finnish Grand Prix motorcycle racing champion who was killed at Monza in 1973.

Jarno Trulli (born 13 July 1974) is an Italian racing driver.

In he moved to the Irish squad, but the team was no longer the force it had been in the late 1990s.

In his two years with Jordan, Trulli failed to score a podium, but did impress with a series of brilliant qualifying displays.

During this period suggestions were made that Trulli was more of a qualifying specialist than an out-and-out fast race driver, a charge he frequently denied.

Under a long-term contract with his personal manager (and Renault manager) Flavio Briatore, Trulli secured a contract with the Anglo-French squad for.

Alongside Jenson Button, he often outqualified his British teammate, but was generally shaded in races.

He started racing in karts at an early age; after winning the Karting World Championship in 1991, the Italian karting championship and several other karting championships in different categories up to 1995, Trulli won the German Formula Three Championship in 1996.

He regularly competed in Formula One from 1997 to 2011, driving for Minardi, Prost, Jordan, Renault, Toyota, Lotus Racing and Team Lotus.

In 1997, Trulli made his debut in Formula One with Minardi.

After 7 races he replaced the injured Olivier Panis at Prost and impressed immediately, finishing fourth in Germany and even leading in Austria, looking set to finish second until his engine blew.

He stayed at the Prost team for the next two seasons and eventually scored his first podium in wet conditions at the 1999 European Grand Prix.

However, this was a rare highlight in a race few of the main front-runners finished, and the poor performance of the Prost team convinced him that a switch to Jordan would bring improved results.

Regardless of Button's improved pace that season, it was Trulli who stayed at Renault for 2003 to partner promoted test-driver Fernando Alonso.

The 2003 Renault was a strong car and in Alonso's hands won in Hungary.

Trulli struggled to attain similar results, but did achieve a podium in Germany, his first since leaving Prost.

Mindful of how much Alonso had outperformed him in, Trulli improved markedly the next year.

For the first half of the season he was the better of the two Renault drivers, racking up regular points and podiums.

At Monaco he finally took his only victory after a brilliant display from pole position.

His best result in the World Drivers' Championship (WDC) was sixth place in ; this was also the year in which he scored the only win of his Formula One career at the 2004 Monaco Grand Prix.

Throughout his Formula One career, Trulli was renowned for his skill in qualifying, regularly achieving far better grid positions than rivals with superior cars to his own.

He was also known for his defensive driving style which allowed him to successfully hold off quicker drivers, sometimes for an entire race.

The combination of being able to achieve high grid positions in comparatively slow cars and his ability to hold off faster drivers would often result in a line of vehicles forming behind him during a race, which was commonly referred to as the 'Trulli Train' by commentators, fans and journalists.

He later accused the team of favouring Alonso, but the reasons why his 2004 season deteriorated have never been properly identified.

He was sacked three races before the end of the season and replaced by World Champion Jacques Villeneuve, despite leading his teammate in the championship at that point.

Having performed so well, the Italian was eager to stick with the team for 2005, but his relationship with team-boss Briatore soured.

A last corner error which allowed Ferrari's Rubens Barrichello onto the podium in France enraged the team, and from that point his days with the French manufacturer were numbered.

He did not score any points after the French Grand Prix and was consistently off the pace during races.

Trulli had already agreed to drive for Toyota in 2005, and his early exit from Renault allowed him to take up his new seat for the last two races of the 2004 season, replacing Ricardo Zonta.

In 2005, early season podiums demonstrated Trulli's speed and at Indianapolis he took Toyota's first Formula One pole.

However, he, his teammate and the majority of the grid, did not enter the race due to using Michelin tyres, which were not safe to race.

For the vast majority of the year he outpaced his highly paid teammate Ralf Schumacher, but a late season dip in form saw him slip to seventh in the championship, two points behind the German.

In, Trulli suffered a very poor start to the season.

On the first lap of the, he was taken out by David Coulthard.

He seemed to be outpaced by teammate Ralf Schumacher more often than not, but finally scored his first points of the season when he raced to 6th from 4th on the grid at the.

Following this was a 4th place in the.

From then on, he would only score 3 more times, with a couple of 7th-place finishes in the and the and also a 6th place in the, where his car became troublesome to drive mid-race, and Ralf Schumacher was delayed in the process.

Trulli was slated to compete in the 2012 Formula One season, but retired before the season began.

In 2014–15 he competed in the inaugural season of the FIA Formula E Championship, driving for Trulli GP, a team he founded.

He is the father of racing driver Enzo Trulli.