Giedo van der Garde
Netherlands- Early Career: Karting and Formula Renault
- Formula 3 and Renault Support
- Formula 1 Aspirations
- GP2 Asia and First Victory
Early Career: Karting and Formula Renault
Giedo van der Garde began his racing career in karting, where he achieved significant success. In 1998, he won the Dutch Junior Karting Championship. He continued his karting career in Super A, becoming the Rookie of the Year in 2001 and the Champion in 2002.
Formula 3 and Renault Support
In 2003, van der Garde transitioned to Formula Renault, competing for the Dutch team Van Amersfoort Racing. He finished sixth in the championship, earning him a spot in the Renault F1 Junior Driver Programme. In 2004, he moved to the Formula 3 Euro Series with Signature-Plus but finished ninth overall and was dropped from the Renault programme.
The following year, he signed with Team Rosberg and again finished ninth in the championship. In 2006, he joined ASM Formule 3, the team that had dominated the series in 2005 with Lewis Hamilton and Adrian Sutil. Despite the team's continued success, van der Garde finished sixth with one victory. He was a top-four contender for most of the season but faced bad luck and technical issues, such as being unable to start from pole at Le Mans due to a mechanical failure. In 2006, van der Garde also joined the McLaren Young Driver Programme.
Formula 1 Aspirations
On December 15, 2006, van der Garde was confirmed as the test and reserve driver for the Super Aguri F1 team for the 2007 season. However, on February 1, 2007, he was unexpectedly announced as the test and reserve driver for Spyker F1. Super Aguri later confirmed that their contract with van der Garde was still valid. After testing for Spyker at Silverstone, the contract dispute was resolved on June 20, 2007.
Van der Garde was initially intended to be Spyker's Friday driver from the Australian Grand Prix onwards, but he did not have the FIA Super License for this role at the time. On December 17, 2006, he also announced that he would compete in the World Series by Renault for Victory Engineering, a team partnered with Carlin Motorsport, which featured his former ASM Formule 3 teammate Sebastian Vettel.
GP2 Asia and First Victory
Although van der Garde finished on the podium in the World Series by Renault, he had a relatively inconsistent season, usually finishing around fifth or sixth and failing to win any races. He finished the season sixth overall and third among the rookies. He received several invitations to test GP2 cars for teams like DAMS and Arden International and impressed during these tests.
Eventually, he signed with P1 Motorsport to compete in the series full-time in 2008. He then moved to iSport International for the 2008-09 GP2 Asia season and the 2009 GP2 season. In the second race of the Hungarian round, van der Garde secured his first victory in the GP2 series.
