Nationality: Italian
Born: 1974
Races: 30
Debut: Australia 1997
Teams: Minardi (‘97), Prost (‘97-’99), Jordan
Current Team: Jordan |
After winning the 1994 World Kart Championship, Jarno made the break into single-seater cars when Flavio Briatore paid a substantial sum of money for him to move up to German Formula 3 midway through 1995 with the KMS team.
Jarno won the final two races of the season, and continued the run of good form into 1996 when he won the championship with the same team. He got his Formula 1 break in the closed season before the 1997 racing calendar when again Briatore nurtured his talent by paying for him to join the Minardi team when he replaced Giancarlo Fisichella, who moved to Jordan.
His team mate for the 1997 season was Ukyo Katayama and while Ukyo performed poorly, Jarno seemed to have pace, even in the uncompetitive Minardi, and after Olivier Panis was injured in an accident in the Canadian Grand Prix, Alain Prost snapped him up as a replacement for Panis for three races. One of these was the Austrian Grand Prix, which he led for many laps before the Mugen engine in the Prost expired, and he was left disappointed.
However, his skill was revealed and he was signed up for the whole of the 1998 season by Prost, alongside the recovered Panis.
The 1998 season was a poor one for the Prost team, with no podium finishes. However, Jarno set some blistering qualifying times and for 1999 stays in the Prost team in a hopefully more competitive car.
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