Antonio Giovinazzi

Giovinazzi made a winning start to his karting career after becoming champion in the Italian National Trophy 60cc and Euro Trophy 60 in 2006, before his single seater career kicked off with similar success in 2012, when the Italian stormed to the Formula Pilota China title. 

He finished 17th in his rookie European Formula 3 Championship with Double R Racig a year later, while a parallel campaign in British Formula 3 with the same team saw him take runner up spot in the championship behind Jordan King. 

Breakthrough European F3 wins came at Carlin in 2014 as he improved to sixth, before finishing second the following year to Felix Rosenqvist, while also finishing fourth in the 2015 Macau Grand Prix. 

Giovinazzi moved up to GP2 and once again had to settle for runner up spot in the final year of the series before being rebranded as Formula 2 in 2017. Despite taking five wins - one more than title rival and Prema teammate Pierre Gasly - and a remarkable double at Baku, he ended up eight points shy of winning the championship. 

Following a brief foray into sportscar and endurance racing, Giovinazzi made his F1 bow in unexpected circumstances at the 2017 Australian Grand Prix, the first of two races he contested in place of the injured regular Sauber driver Pascal Wehrlein. 

He impressed with a 12th place finish in Melbourne but the beginning to his F1 career was somewhat soured by a crash-strewn weekend in China. He spent the rest of the year and 2018 splitting his commitments as test driver for Haas, Sauber and Ferrari, before earning a full-time F1 seat with Sauber in 2019 alongside Kimi Raikkonen, having taken the place of Indycar-bound Marcus Ericsson.

Giovinazzi took time to adjust to racing full-time once again after two years out, but by mid-season had proved himself to be a close match for teammate Kimi Raikkonen, particularly in qualifying. Giovinazzi led the Singapore Grand Prix briefly, and took a fifth-place finish in Brazil to end the season on a high, securing himself a place with Alfa Romeo for 2020 in the process.

Giovinazzi showed greater consistency throughout 2020 and cut out the mistakes despite Alfa's struggles and he performed to a much closer level to that of teammate Raikkonen in both qualifying and the races, equalling the Finn's four-point haul with three points finishes in Austria (9th), Germany (10th) and Imola (10th. 

Alfa will be expecting to see a further step in 2021, having kept the faith in the Italian who still harbours dreams of one day racing for Ferrari.