Tarso Marques

Born into a wealthy family, Tarso Marques moved to Europe and Formula 3000 after just two seasons racing cars in South America. Despite his relative inexperience, he proved to be a race winner in junior categories before an intermittent career in both Formula 1 and Champ Cars.

Early racing career

Successful in regional karting, Marques began racing in Brazilian Formula Opel in 1992. A winner four times that season, he graduated to Sud-Am Formula 3 a year later and his Ralt RT33-Mugen won at Interlagos.

Impatient to climb the single-seater racing ladder, the teenager took Banco do Brasil-sponsorship to fund a season with Vortex Motorsport’s Reynard 94D-Cosworth in the 1994 FIA F3000 Championship. A midfielder all year long, he came good at the final round at Magny-Cours by qualifying fifth and finishing fourth.

Formula 1 with Minardi

He moved to DAMS for 1995 and was immediately on the pace – qualifying on pole position at Pau and Estoril and winning the latter. Fifth in the F3000 standings, Marques raised the budget to make his F1 debut in the 1996 Brazilian and Argentine GPs with a Minardi 195B-Ford. He spun in the first and crashed into Martin Brundle in the second before spending the rest of the year as a test driver.

Jarno Trulli left Minardi to join Prost Grand Prix during 1997 and Marques was promoted to the race team for the rest of the season. Regularly seen at the tail of the field, he finished 10th at Silverstone.

Champ Car career and Minardi return

A test driver for Bridgestone during 1998, he tested for Dale Coyne’s Champ Car team during the winter of 1998/99 and replaced the injured Penske star Al Unser Jr for six races in the 1999 Champ Car World Series. The Penske PC27B-Mercedes-Benz was a troublesome car and ninth at Rio de Janeiro was his best finish.

Marques drove Coyne’s Panasonic Swift 2KI-Ford in all-but the first three races of 2000 and finished a career-high seventh at Fontana’s final round. He then made a surprising return to F1 in 2001 as Minardi team-mate for the young Fernando Alonso. He proved a disappointment and was replaced by pay-driver Alex Yoong before the end of the season. Ninth in that year’s Brazilian and Canadian GPs proved to be his best F1 results.

Out of racing for a couple of years, Marques finished fourth in the 2004 FIA GT race at Oschersleben driving a JMB Racing Ferrari 575GTC. He also made occasional Champ Car appearances for Coyne that and the following season before switching to Brazilian V8 stock cars in 2006.