LIGHTS TO FLAG: Vitantonio Liuzzi on beating Michael Schumacher, Red Bull politics, and his new role in F1

Liuzzi was outscored 47-21 by Sutil and Mercedes-backed driver Paul di Resta was waiting in the wings to take his seat for 2011.

“Mercedes offered a discount in terms of the gearbox and power unit, and I understand how things work. We’re used to it. It was important for a medium-small team to have money and support so I raised my hand; when you’re against a many million-Euro offer, the talent cannot be enough.

“I was not winning races at that stage, Mr [Vijay] Mallya [team owner] was very supportive of me, but against 15 or 20 million, I can’t remember the budget, I would have taken the offer too!”

For 2011, Liuzzi joined minnows Hispania Racing, who debuted their F111 only in second practice of the opening round of the season at Melbourne – where neither Liuzzi nor team mate Narain Karthikeyan managed to lap within the required 107% time of the pole-sitter.

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“It was pretty difficult to drive because the lack of downforce was huge and the car, at the beginning, was struggling quite a bit. But still, we were pushing hard,” he says.

“If I’m not wrong, they were supporting the season with 80 million Euros, which is really nothing for a Formula 1 team. So it was really difficult to develop.”

The season saw Hispania, renamed HRT midway through the campaign, score zero points, and for 2012 they would replace Liuzzi with Pedro de la Rosa.

The right place at the wrong time

Liuzzi shrugs off the notion of regrets, but it seems that his F1 highlights were often flecked with disappointment. Perhaps most agonising was the fact that he missed out on a home podium in the 2009 Italian Grand Prix, his first race for Force India after a year out.

“We would’ve definitely finished on the podium because we had amazing speed. It was one of the two races of the year where Force India were really fast, and with fuel correction I would’ve qualified on the first row. In the race we were going for a podium, but the gearbox seized, broke down. that was my biggest regret.

“This kind of race might change your whole career – like when I was in Canada in 2007, running P5 for Toro Rosso, and the suspension broke on the final chicane… every time I was in a podium situation, the car didn’t support me to the chequered flag.”

He adds that his own personality might have worked against him in the cut-throat world of contract negotiations.

“Maybe I also regret that I should have been more political, because I’ve always been a straight-forward person, and I thought that only on-track performance counted – but in this business, it’s not the case. You have to have marketing, politics, speed. It’s a package – and I was not the full package, I think.”

Liuzzi’s love of motorsport didn’t end with his tenure in F1, and the list of series he’s entered is frankly huge. It includes the Superstars Series (touring cars), a few appearances for Lotus in the 2013 World Endurance Championship, and a trip to Japan for the 2014 Super GT and Super Formula series.

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“I think maybe I was pissed off about this whole situation in F1 and I started doing many series that were maybe lower than the level I was coming from – Superstars was a real step down – but I wanted to do things that I was enjoying, things that I could switch off with.

“I got a serious package in Japan with Honda in Super GT, but I was in the right place in the wrong time – also in Formula 1 I was in the right place in the wrong time, many times. In Super GT it was the year where the engine changed from V8 to V6, and Honda did a terrible new engine. We were like two seconds off [the pace], but all the Honda cars were.”

From racer to restaurateur

Whether or not Liuzzi thinks he was the ‘full package’ in F1, he seems to have embraced the world of entrepreneurship; he and his wife run five restaurants in Italy, including pizzeria Penelopina in Milan and Penelope a Casa in Milan.

“My wife runs everything,” says Liuzzi with a smile, “And I do, let’s say connections, marketing, and we have five restaurants now – four in Milan and one in Pescara.”

But the devastating and wide-ranging impact of the global pandemic almost derailed his businesses.

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“It was really difficult, really difficult,” he recalls. “We opened in Milan at the end of 2018 so after one year of work it was not easy, but I have to say, the position we took in the market was pretty good, we had a really strong first year, and we have been able to save in a clever way with the support of the country, with the way we helped the employees, and we became stronger straight after Covid.

“Luckily, things seems to be going really well, people love what we do, so we decided to grow and try new experiences, and we started in Italy because we have a young daughter – we don’t want to put her in a washing machine, to make her travel around the world, until she grows up a little bit, but we want to expand in the future.”

Switching to stewarding

Liuzzi hasn’t completely stepped away from the wheel – although his last competitive appearance was in the 2017 GT Open series – and he’s still firmly involved with racing, coaching drivers in GT series, go-kart, F3 and F4.

He’s also an FIA Steward.

“Four years ago they asked me to be a steward for Formula E. It was not something I thought about doing but I thought about it and the sport needs a driver in a steward’s role, to analyse situations from a driver’s position.”

He dived into the deep end with his first F1 Stewarding gig. His first race involved a heavy crash between Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen at the 2019 British Grand Prix (see the clip below).

“It was 2019, I think it was the race after Vettel and [Lewis] Hamilton had that controversy in Canada. I started in Silverstone. It was a really hard weekend, I had a lot of pressure in that weekend and there was a big crash between Vettel and Verstappen at the chicane, at Club, so it was quite an intense race as well – but I liked the position of a steward.

“I don’t know if by luck or coincidence, everything worked well.”