Scott Speed

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Scott Speed
F1 Record
Nationality	American
Car #	21
Current team	Toro Rosso
Team for 2007	—
Grands Prix	15
World Championships	0
Wins	0
Podium finishes	0
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	0
First Grand Prix	2006 Bahrain Grand Prix
Last Grand Prix	2006 Brazilian Grand Prix
2006 Championship position	20th (0 pts)
edit

Scott Andrew Speed is a race car driver born on 24 January 1983 in Manteca, California, USA. A driver for the Scuderia Toro Rosso F1 team, he made his Formula 1 race debut at the 2006 Bahrain Grand Prix.

Contents 1 Early years 2 Formula One 2.1 2005 2.2 2006 3 GP2 Series Record 4 Complete Formula One results 5 Personal Information 6 External links

[edit] Early years

Speed's career started at the age of 10 in karting, his stint there lasting from 1993 until 2000. He moved up to Formula series in 2001, competing in US Formula Russell and becoming champion. He drove in both the US Barber Formula Dodge and US Star Mazda Series followed in 2002, although he failed to win either title, and in 2003 the American drove for the ADR team in British Formula Three after winning the Red Bull Driver Search programme.

2004 saw two championship titles for Speed, though, with him first winning in Formula Renault 2000 Eurocup and later German Formula Renault. His performances resulted in a drive in the inaugurual season of GP2 Series for 2005, as number two for the iSport team to Can Artam. Speed was later promoted to first driver for the team, and ended the season third place in the driver championship standings behind Nico Rosberg and Heikki Kovalainen.

At the end of 2005, Speed drove the first three races of the new A1 Grand Prix series for A1 Team USA, achieving a best result of fourth in the Feature Race of the 2005-06 A1 Grand Prix of Nations, Portugal, held at the Autódromo do Estoril.

[edit] Formula One

[edit] 2005

In 2005 at the Canadian Grand Prix, Speed took part as a test driver for Red Bull Racing; becoming the first American driver to participate in a Formula One event since Michael Andretti's 1993 stint. He was also the test driver for the United States Grand Prix.

Following its purchase of Minardi, Red Bull Racing announced the creation of Scuderia Toro Rosso with Speed and Vitantonio Liuzzi as its drivers in 2006 season.

[edit] 2006

In his debut race at the Bahrain Grand Prix, he finished a respectable 13th. A week later at the Malaysian Grand Prix he retired after 41 laps due to a clutch malfunction.

After the Australian Grand Prix it looked as if he had scored his and Toro Rosso's first point. Later on however, he had 25 seconds added to his race time dropping him to 9th place for overtaking under yellow flags. He was also fined $5000 for using abusive language during a post-race hearing towards David Coulthard.

He finished the San Marino Grand Prix in 15th place. A week later and after a decent run at the European Grand Prix he finished 11th. He retired from the Spanish Grand Prix with an engine failure. And in his first Monaco Grand Prix he finished 13th.

He retired from the British Grand Prix on the opening lap with accident damage after coming together with Ralf Schumacher. Speed bounced back and ran rather well at the Canadian Grand Prix finishing 10th.

At the United States Grand Prix he qualified a career best 13th only to be taken out at Turn 2. In Turn 2, Juan Pablo Montoya nudged his team-mate Kimi Räikkönen into a spin. Montoya then clouted Jenson Button who's front right tyre got caught by BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld who was launched into a spectacular triple barrel roll. Speed was caught up in the resulting melee. None of the drivers were injured. Speed could consider himself unlucky, as the traditional high rate of attrition that the US Grand Prix usually sees allowed his teammate Liuzzi to finish 8th, and score the team's first World Championship point.

At the French Grand Prix he finished 10th, matching David Coulthard's pace throughout. It was a brave effort considering Speed was suffering from back pains and breathing problems, stemming from a Friday Practice accident. After crashing during the first knock-out session in Qualifying for the German Grand Prix, Speed battled his way up to 12th in the race. At the Hungarian Grand Prix he finished 11th and 4 laps behind the leader, but it was in very wet and changeable conditions.

At the Turkish Grand Prix, Speed started in 18th, but could only battle to 13th, from 15 classified runners. At the next round, the Italian Grand Prix, Speed qualified a respectable 15th in Scuderia Toro Rosso's home race, but a disappointing race saw him make up just two places and finish 13th.

At the Chinese Grand Prix, Speed qualified a very good 11th place in wet conditions, but an equally wet race saw him slip back to 14th by the end. The next round was the Japanese Grand Prix, which Speed, after a disappointing qualifying, which saw him start the race in 19th. Suffering a power steering failure with five laps remaining, Scott was unable to finish. However, as he had completed over 90% of the race distance, he was still classified.

Finally, at the season-ending Brazilian Grand Prix, Speed had another good race, finishing a good 11th, with 17 cars classified, too, having started down in 17th.

Scuderia Toro Rosso are expected to continue with Speed and Liuzzi for the 2007 season, though there has been speculation that Speed might be replaced with Red Bull's Dutch test driver Robert Doornbos.

[edit] GP2 Series Record

Season	Team Name	No.	Races	Poles	Wins	Points	Final Placing
2005	iSport International	01	23	1	0	67.5	3rd

[edit] Complete Formula One results

(key)

Yr	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	Team	WDC	Points
2005	Red Bull	AUS	MAS	BAH	SMR	SPA	MON	EUR	CAN TD	USA TD	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	TUR	ITA	BEL	BRA	JPN	CHN	Red Bull	-	-
2006	Toro Rosso	BAH 13	MAS Ret	AUS 9	SMR 15	EUR 11	SPA Ret	MON 13	GBR Ret	CAN 10	USA Ret	FRA 10	DEU 12	HUN 11	TUR 13	ITA 13	CHN 14	JPN Ret	BRA 11	-	Toro Rosso	20th	0

[edit] Personal Information

Speed currently resides in Fuschl am See, Austria, where he lives with his girlfriend Valentina Neuhauser. His brother Alex currently races Karts in America.

In 2003, Speed was diagnosed with severe Ulcerative Colitis, but as of March 2006 has remained symptom free for a year.

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Scott Speed

• Official Scott Speed site
• Official Scuderia Toro Rosso site
• Profile and 2006 statistics

Constructors and drivers competing in the 2007 Formula One championship
McLaren	Renault	Ferrari	Honda	BMW	Toyota
1 Alonso 2 Hamilton	3 Fisichella 4 Kovalainen	5 Massa 6 Räikkönen	7 Button 8 Barrichello	9 Heidfeld 10 Kubica	11 Schumacher 12 Trulli
Red Bull	Williams	Toro Rosso	Spyker	Super Aguri
14 Coulthard 15 Webber	16 Rosberg 17 Wurz	18 ? 19 ?	20 Albers 21 ?	22 Sato 23 Davidson