Álvaro Parente

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Álvaro Parente (born October 4, 1984) is a Portuguese racecar driver. Parente's father was also a racer.

After winning the Karting European Junior Championship in 1998, Parente made his debut in auto racing in 2001 at the age of 16, driving in the Spanish F3 Championship. In the following year, he was integrated into the Team Portugal project and scored a win on his way to 4th place in the series.

Parente than began a more international career in 2003, moving to the F3 Euroseries with Team Ghinzani, but the Mugen-Honda engine proved to be inferior to the Mercedes and he scored a single point. He did better with one-off entries in the Italy and at Spa in a round of the British Championship, his first association with Carlin Motorsport, which was repeated that year in the Macau Grand Prix.

This brief contact paved the way for a contract with Carlin for the 2004 season, where he took part in the British series, scoring another win and finishing 7th in the championship standings. He also took part in Marlboro Masters and at Macau, but in the former the Mugen-Honda couldn't take the fight to the Mercedes drivers and in the latter he was taken out in the first lap.

Parente stayed in the UK for another season, and his experience helped him to win the championship with four races to go, scoring a total of 11 wins. This result made him the natural candidate to represent A1 Team Portugal for the new A1 Grand Prix series.

For 2006, Parente joined the World Series by Renault with the Victory Engineering team, and achieved his first win at Istanbul in only his fifth race in the category. He took two further wins at the Nürburgring and Circuit de Catalunya to finish fifth in the final standings. He had hoped to progress onto the GP2 Series in 2007, but a lack of sponsorship scuppered his plans. He will, however, return to the World Series with the French Tech 1 Racing team, having signed a contract on the eve of the first pre-season test. [1]

[edit] Racing career

1998 - Karting European Championship, Champion
2001 - Spanish F3, 12th place
2002 - Spanish F3, 4th place
2003 - F3 Euroseries, 25th place (also one-offs in Italian F3 and British F3)
2004 - British F3 Championship, 7th place (also Macau GP and Marlboro Masters)
2005 - British F3 Championship, Champion (also Marlboro Masters); A1 Grand Prix with A1 Team Portugal
2006 - World Series by Renault with Victory Engineering, 5th Place
2007 - World Series by Renault with Tech 1 Racing