Luciano Pucci Burti (born 5 March 1975) is a Brazilian former racing driver who raced in Formula One in 2000 and 2001.
Bio by Stephen Latham
Born in São Paulo, Brazil, on the 5th March 1975, Luciano Burti contested F1 for Jaguar and Prost and was later a commentator for TV Globo. His early career saw him graduate through the lower formulae and he found himself in British F3, driving for the Paul Stewart Racing team in 1998. In his first season he took victories at Brands Hatch and Pembrey, was second at Silverstone, third at Donington, Oulton Park, Croft and Thruxton, plus fourth at Donington, fifth at Thruxton and Pembrey plus sixth at Silverstone. His second year with the team was more successful, taking victories at Brands Hatch, Oulton Park, Snetterton and Spa, and finishing second at Croft, Brands Hatch and Snetterton plus third at Donington, Silverstone, Brands Hatch, Pembrey and Donington (twice). He finished runner-up to Marc Hynes and ahead of third-placed Jenson Button.
After impressing when testing the Stewart F1 car the year before, he became Jaguar’s test driver for 2000, mainly down to the lobbying of the outgoing team boss, Jackie Stewart. July saw his GP debut with Jaguar at Austria, when he was called up at short notice as a replacement for Eddie Irvine, who was ill. He finished eleventh and later, having tested consistently well for them during the season and with the race start under his belt, he was promoted to the race team alongside Irvine in 2001, replacing the retiring Johnny Herbert. Racing the R2 he was eighth in Australia, tenth in Malaysia, retired in Brazil and was eleventh in San Marino but he lost the drive after just four races and was replaced by Pedro de la Rosa. At the following GP two weeks later in Spain Luciano was now with Prost (where Gastón Mazzacane had been sacked) and finished eleventh. Further races brought eleventh in Austria, eighth in Canada, twelfth in the European GP at Nurburgring plus tenth in France.
Unfortunately, he was involved in two major accidents, with the first occurring at the German GP. Unable to avoid Michael Schumacher’s slowing Ferrari, whose gearbox had failed seconds after the race start, Luciano struck the back of it which launched him into a cartwheel over Enrique Bernoldi’s Arrows. Fortunately, none of the drivers were injured and all three took the restarted race, though he spun out on lap twenty three. Two races later came a serious crash in Belgium when his car touched with Irvine as he attempted to overtake him. The car left the track at high speed and smashed into a tyre wall, with his helmet taking the brunt of the impact. The Safety Car was deployed before the race was eventually stopped, and Irvine subsequently helped the marshals in their attempt to extract Luciano, who was buried under the tyres. Miraculously, he escaped without life threatening injuries, although he was still flown to Liège with concussion and the crash forced him to sit out the rest of the season with facial bruising and a concussion. His seat was taken by Czech rookie Tomáš Enge, who became the fifth driver to drive for the team that year. They finished last in the Constructors Championship, failing to score a single point during the season, but in early 2002 the team went bankrupt, just before the start of the season as Prost had been unable to raise enough sponsorship to keep the team afloat. The accident had life-changing consequences as he had no recollection of the race and the 48 hours that followed, telling how “my recollection of the accident is zero. I do not even remember the start. My first memory was about three days after the accident, waking up and talking to my parents at the hospital.” He was affected by problems with concentration and suffered from seizures for a few months after the crash and though he recovered sufficiently to work for a spell as a test driver at Ferrari, he left the team on the expiry of his contract in 2004.
Luciano went on to race stock cars in his homeland plus commentated on F1 races for TV Globo. In 2005 he raced a Chevrolet Astra for Eurofarma RC in Brazilian Stock Cars, finishing third at Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires and, teamed with Diego Aventin, won a Turismo Competicion 200 event with a Ford Focus. The following seasons saw him continue in Brazilian Stock Cars racing an Action Power Volkswagen Bora, where he was third at Buenos Aires in 2006 and second at Santa Cruz in 2007. During 2006 he also contested a Porsche Supercup round at Bahrain with a 997 GT3 Cup. Action Power ran a Peugeot 307 in 2008, where he was second in Rio de Janeiro then in 2009 he raced Boettger Competiçõe’s Chevrolet Vectra and results included second at Sao Paulo and his first victory, at Taruma. Between 2010 and 2012 he raced Itaipava Racing Team’s Peugeot 408 and in 2011 won the Stock Car Pro Series Campo Grande, at Autódromo Internacional Orlando Moura and in the following year was second at Londrina, at the Autódromo Internacional Ayrton Senna plus third at Salvador. He raced a Peugeot 408 for Boettger Competições in 2013 then in the following year drove Vogel Motorsport’s Chevrolet Sonic and was third at Brasilia and Salvador. During 2015 and 2016 he drove a Chevrolet Sonic for RZ Motorsport, finishing third at Curitiba, then a Bassani Racing Chevrolet Cruze in 2018.
13 years after the accident, he was reunited with his helmet from Belgium, which had been stored in a warehouse by the FIA. With the warehouse due to close down, the items stored there needed to be returned to their owners, where possible, so the FIA presented the helmet to him at the 2014 British GP, where Luciano was working as a commentator for Brazilian television. He admitted that “When I picked up the helmet, I cried. The truth in front of me was very shocking…When I showed my mum, she also had a shock. It’s exactly the way it came off my head, with the dirt of the day of the accident,” He stated that the helmet was “very well maintained” and it was possible to see the “marks of the tyres that came over me”.
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