OBSCURE F1 A-Z: PERDO DINIZ

In this 26 part series of posts I will be going through the alphabet and for each letter, a profile piece on an obscure driver - some you may have heard of before some you may never knew even sat in an F1 car let alone raced one. I have chosen a driver for each letter choosing them based on their surnames.

Pedro Diniz born in Sao Paulo was an F1 driver for five years he raced from 1995 - 2000. During his career he raced for four different teams he debuted in Formula One with Forti in '95, he then moved over to Ligier for the following season. In 1997-98 Diniz raced for the Arrow's team then for the '99 season up to the year after in which he retired raced for Sauber.

In his career Diniz entered a grand total of 99 races starting 98. Diniz's career was filled with accidents and the occasional point scoring finishes. Eight times in his career Diniz was able to score one or two points - his first points came at the 1996 Spanish Grand Prix where he finished in sixth place he would then score a second time that season at the Italian Grand Prix again finishing in sixth place. Diniz also scored at the '97 Luxembourg Grand Prix (fifth), the '98 Monaco Grand Prix (sixth) and Belgian Grand Prix (fifth). He had his best season in F1 in 1999 where he scored points at the Canadian Grand Prix (sixth) and the British and Austrian Grand Prix (sixth). Unfortunately for Diniz retirements became a running theme throughout his time in F1 - Diniz didn't see the chequered flag a total of 57 times in his career.

Through all the retirements Diniz did score 10 World Championship points in his five year career.

Diniz made his debut at the 1995 Brazilian Grand Prix where he would manage a tenth place finish (which at that time didn't score a driver any points). Diniz's last race in F1 was the 2000 Malaysian Grand Prix where he retired from the race.

His highest finish in the standings was 14th place in 1998 and 1999.