Ricardo Zonta graduated to Formula One with BAR in 1999 as a hotly tipped prospect, following a championship-winning campaign in F3000.
Whether it was the BAR team finding its feet, or the legendary psyche-out routines performed by team mate Jacques Villeneuve, but Zonta had a tough time adjusting to Formula One.
His debut season was, to many observers, little more than a catalogue of shunts, earning the Brazilian the nickname of ‘pebbles’. 2000 was little better and Zonta’s confidence was thoroughly destroyed following a monumental testing shunt at Silverstone. He got a couple of outings for Jordan in 2001 and, since then, became a test driver for Toyota with whom he also got a race drive in 2004.