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Nationality: South African, Swiss
Adrian Zaugg (born in Singapore, November 4. 1986) South African/ Swiss race car driver.
Adrian was born to a South African mother and Swiss father. The passion for motorsport grew naturally, as there was no racing background in his family. He started karting with the age of 13 in the year 2000. Adrian won his first karting race in his third ever attempt in a national junior race (100ccm) in raining conditions.
After winning the Bridgestone Cup in Karting in 2002, he impressed on a Formula BMW Scholarship Course, where he got selected as a official BMW junior, further he was signed by Austrian energy drink company Red Bull in 2004, for their Red Bull Junior Team programme. This gave Adrian a solid starting ground for his racing career. He finished seventh place on his debut year in single-seaters (German Formula BMW). This was in the year where Sebastian Vettel (F1 race winner 2008/2009) has won the championship.
For 2005, he moved up to Euro-cup Formula Renault, winning his first race on a street circuit in Bilbao after having claimed a dominant pole-position of over a half a second quicker then the rest of the field! In 2006 he continued in Formula Renault Italia, winning six races and 12 podium finishes, achieving the vice-champion title, same as Robert Kubica has done a few years before. In the same year Adrian got the chance to replace a driver in World Series by Renault V6 for three race weekends, racing with Carlin Motorsport. Without any previous testing, at his second race-event at Donington, with a car that has more than double the power than the Formula Renault he was used to, he went on to qualify on pole-position (0.3sec gap to second placed), further scoring two podium finishes. For the 2006-07 season, he also made his A1 Grand Prix debut for Team South Africa at Zandvoort, the 2006-07 A1 Grand Prix of Nations, Netherlands. He qualified on pole position in his very first qualifying session, and went on to win the race. His impressive outings in A1Gp led to him being signed up to drive for Arden International for the 2007 F1-feder series, Gp2, which saw Adrian moving closer than ever before to his dream of Formula 1. Just prior to that season Adrian was diagnosed with Compartment Syndrome in both his forearms, which meant that he had to undergo surgery in order to continue his racing career.
After the surgery, it took up to six months to properly build the muscles back up and to gain back the full strength! Adrian recovered well, but his Gp2 season got compromised.
In time for the 07/08 A1Gp season Adrian was completely back up to strength and gave team South Africa their by far best results with two race wins (another one in Zandvoorts Sprint race with a winning margin of 7.5 sec in dry conditions, plus a Feature race win in Australia with a winning margin of 20 sec. in wet conditions) four podiums, four pole-positions and two fastest laps, finishing fifth in the World-Cup of Motorsport.
In 2009 Adrian returns to World Series by Renault for a half a season (6 race-weekends). After finishing in the points in the opening rounds at Barcelona and Spa (without pre season testing) he scored an impressive second place on the streets of Monaco, the glamorous race which is held at the same weekend as the F1 GP.
2000 - 2003 2007 Gp2-Series
2008 A1Gp
2009 Renault World Series 3.5 14 in Championship, highlight, second place at Monaco |
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