Pedro Diniz

Pedro Paulo Falleiros dos Santos Diniz (born 22 May 1970) is a Brazilian businessman and former racing driver.

Diniz began karting at the age of eighteen and achieved minor success, before progressing to car racing in the Brazilian Formula Ford Championship and the British Formula 3 Championship.

Diniz was born in São Paulo, Brazil, on 22 May 1970.

His father was Abílio dos Santos Diniz, a businessman who used to own the Brazilian distribution chain Companhia Brasileira de Distribuição and the supermarket chain Pão de Açúcar.

Diniz struggled to find a good education and went to several schools around the local area.

Diniz began karting at the age of eighteen, and his career was funded by his father who supported his son's hobby.

He competed in several events around Brazil and his first racing success came when he won the Two Hours of São Paulo.

Aged 19, Diniz moved up into car racing, competing in the Brazilian Formula Ford championship, where he finished ninth in the Drivers' Championship.

In 1990, Diniz moved to the Reyanud Alfa team and finished ninth overall, with his best performances being a podium position at Interlagos.

For 1991, Diniz moved to the British Formula 3 with the West Surrey Racing team, finishing 11th overall.

He moved to the Edenbridge Racing team in 1992, driving a Reynard Mugen and took two podiums en route to eighth place overall.

He first drove in Formula One with Forti for the 1995 season.

Diniz entered Formula One, the highest category of circuit racing defined by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), motorsport's world governing body, with the Forti team, as team-mate to Roberto Moreno in 1995.

In addition, this was the first of a three-year contract with Diniz and his backers.

Despite his lack of success in F3000, he was guaranteed a seat as his family and sponsors were paying a significant amount of the team's budget.

Furthermore, retired driver René Arnoux was employed as a consultant and driver coach for Diniz.

The season started with Diniz scoring three consecutive finishes, albeit outside of the points scoring positions—but was not classified for the races in Argentina and San Marino.

He did not finish the next race in Spain due to a gearbox problem and finished tenth in Monaco.

Diniz retired from the next five races he entered, primarily from car issues and spun off into retirement at Magny-Cours.

He subsequently finished every remaining race of the season, apart from the Grand Prix held at Suzuka where he spun off.

He finished the season scoring no points and was unclassified in the Drivers' Championship.

Diniz's good finishing record enabled him to establish himself as a steady, dependable driver.

Following his poor season with Forti in 1995 little was expected of him for 1996, so there was mild surprise when he managed to out-qualify the better rated Panis at Hockenheim and establish himself as a driver capable of scoring points.

In December, Diniz signed for the Ligier team for 1996, despite team owner Tom Walkinshaw initially refusing to hold talks with the Brazilian driver.

Ligier eventually signed Diniz after a shootout test session against other drivers in which Diniz was the fastest, also impressing the team with his approach and technical feedback.

At the end of the season, Diniz and his sponsors were described as "throwing their money away" on the uncompetitive Forti.

But the more significant impact of his first year in F1 was that the Brazilian had done nothing to assuage critics who had said he was a "pay driver".

It took him several years to prove that he was not just in the sport because of his funding.

Diniz started the season by finishing outside of the points in the opening two races—tenth in Australia and eighth in Brazil.

At the Argentine Grand Prix, his car burst into flames after a pit-stop due to its fuel valve sticking open; British newspaper The Sun famously printed the photo alongside the headline "Diniz in the Oven".

After failing to finish at Monaco, a race which his teammate Panis won, Diniz scored his first career point with a sixth-place finish at Catalunya.

Six straight retirements followed before he scored another sixth-place finish at Monza.

The following year he switched to Ligier and moved to Arrows for 1997.

In 1998, he finished 14th in the Drivers' Championship, and subsequently moved to Sauber for 1999.

He left Sauber after the 2000 season and bought a share in the Prost team, which folded a year later.

Since leaving motorsport, Diniz founded the Formula Renault 2.0 Brazil Championship which he ran from 2002 and 2006, later becoming a partner in Pão de Açúcar and operates an organic produce and dairy farm alongside his wife Tatiana Diniz.

He is a board member of Food Tank, a non-profit organization that spotlights environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable ways of alleviating hunger, obesity, and poverty and works to create networks of people, organizations, and content to push for food system change.

Diniz was considered a pay driver during his career due to his family backing.

He scored ten points during his six-year Formula One career in a period when only top-six finishes awarded points and other pay drivers did not score any points.

He finished the season 15th in the Drivers' Championship with two points, six places and 11 points behind Panis.