Neel Jani

Neel Jani (born December 8, 1983 in Rorschach, Switzerland) is a Swiss race car driver.

Karting

Jani's career started in karting in 1998, where he stayed for two years before moving up to Formula Renault 2000 Eurocup in 2001.

Karting to Formula Renault

In the same year he also raced some races in Italian Formula Renault. He would stay in both for 2002, again only racing part of the Italian Formula Renault season. In 2003 he moved to Formula Renault V6 Eurocup, driving for the Jenzer team.

GP2

He stayed in V6 Eurocup for 2004, driving for the DAMS team this time, whilst also one race for DAMS' FIA GT Championship team. In 2005 he raced in the GP2 Series with Racing Engineering alongside Borja Garcia, who he generally outperformed. He won two races, at the Hungaroring and at Monza. He also managed to lead most of the Nürburgring race in a clearly slower car with some effective defensive driving.

In 2006 he replaced injured Nicolas Lapierre in the Silverstone and Magny-Cours races for English race team Arden. By doing this he also secured his place in the record books, being the only person to ever drive in both GP2 and F1 on the same day.

GP2 Series Record

Season	Team Name	No.	Races	Poles	Wins	Points	Final Placing
2005	Racing Engineering	18	23	1	2	48	7th
2006	Arden International	04	4	0	0	0	28th

A1 Grand Prix

He then raced in the new A1 Grand Prix series, representing his home nation with A1 Team Switzerland. In the inaugural season of A1GP, the team earned the silver medal for second place, with Jani consistently finishing on the podium, including a win at the Dubai Autodrome during the Sprint Race of the 2005-06 A1 Grand Prix of Nations, United Arab Emirates.

After missing the first two rounds of the 2006-07 season in favour Sébastien Buemi, Jani would win another Sprint Race, during the 2006-07 A1 Grand Prix of Nations, Malaysia.

Formula One

File:Neel Jani 2006.jpg

Jani testing for Scuderia Toro Rosso in 2006.

He was linked to an F1 seat with the Sauber team in 2004. However, he moved back to GP2 the following year. In December 2005 he was confirmed as Scuderia Toro Rosso's third driver, alongside race drivers Scott Speed and Vitantonio Liuzzi, a role he held throughout the 2006 season, before departing to pursue a Champ Car career.

Complete Formula One participations

(key)

Yr	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	WDC	Points
2006	Scuderia Toro Rosso	Toro Rosso STR1	Cosworth V10	BHR TD	MAL TD	AUS TD	SMR TD	EUR TD	ESP TD	MON TD	GBR TD	CAN TD	USA TD	FRA TD	GER TD	HUN TD	TUR TD	ITA TD	CHN TD	JPN TD	BRA TD	-	-

Champ Car

For 2007, Jani is driving for the PKV Racing team in the Champ Car World Series.

Complete Champ Car results

Yr	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	Rank	Points
2007	PKV Racing	LVG Ret	LGB 7	HST Ret	POR 12	CLE 3	MTT 6	TOR 2	EDM 9	SAN 2	ROA 10	ZOL	ASS	SUR	MEX	PHO	7th	167

External links

• Neel Jani Official Site
• Neel Jani career statistics