Luiz Razia

Born in Brazil in April 1989 Razia spent most of his early career racing in south america becoming the F3 south american champion in 2006. His career after that became very bitty for instance he took part in just 3 international Formula 3000 races winning them all but didn't appear for the rest of the championship. The same happened when he came into GP2 in fact he was team mates with Max Chilton for all of one GP2 round at the begining of the 2008 series before the team dropped both drivers.

Razia was in and out of the series after that but in 2010 had a full year with Pastor Maldonado as his team mate. Pastor won the title and Razia only came 11th which did him no favours at all. He did test for Virgin racing in the young drivers test. I 2011 he became part of the AirAsia team which meant he also got some test time with Caterham(then Lotus). Davide Valsrcchi was his team mate and despite neither doing too badly they didn't have the funds of other drivers and were replaced. Both found other drives though and got into direct competition for the title. The battle was won by Valsechhi in the end but Razia certainly did a lot to boost his rep.

After establishing the runner up spot on GP2 Razia set about securing an F1 drive. With Marussia already plumping for Max Chilton it looked like Caterham was his chance but with the sudden exit of Timo Glock, his backing secured him a seat with the team. Something he announced a week before the team did.

There is no doubt that Razia landed his seat due to funding but lets remember that he did beat all the other GP2 rookies that are on the grid last year and in a spec series this means more because it couldn't just be down to the car. He also seems to have got himself into a team that under Pat Symonds guidence seems to be moving upwards.

So do we think Luiz will be a one year thing that gets spit out the Marussia machine or do we think he'll establish himself on the grid. On paper he should be ahead of British team mate Max Chilton but do we think that will happen?
 
If anyone wondered what happened to Razia he appears to currently be racing in the international GT series.
 
... and yes I agree when he says: "F1 these days is all about the money and second hand is the talent - unfortunately I don't have money at the moment, so it is looking difficult to get back to it," Razia

.. but I like this bit in the article: "but when his backing failed to arrive, the 24-year-old was replaced by Jules Bianchi." because, looking at their lower formula championship performances, Bianchi appears to bring more talent as well the dosh.:D

Bianchi
Races 144
Championships 3 :1st::1st::1st:
2nd in C/ship 2 :2nd::2nd:
3rd in C/ship 3 :3rd::3rd::3rd:
Race Wins 22
Podiums 55

Razia
Races 200
Championships 1 :1st:
2nd in C/ship 1 :2nd:
3rd in C/ship 2 :3rd::3rd:
Race Wins 21
Podiums 51

Oh and Jules just about qualifies according to my personal subjective "F1 worthiness criteria" LOL
 
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To be fair to Razia he did come out and say at the time that Bianchi deserved a drive in F1 but yes Marussia did end up with better driver by looks of things.
 
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