
Diniz in numbers
10 official points · best championship finish: 14th in 1998
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Pedro Diniz reached Formula 1 with his family's financial backing and scored points in four of his six seasons. A Brazilian born in 1970, he made his debut in 1995 with Forti, a new team that spent the year at the back of the grid, and in 1996 moved to Ligier, where he scored his first points: sixth in Barcelona and sixth at Monza.
In 1997 he was team-mate to Damon Hill, who arrived at Arrows as world champion. Diniz was fifth in Luxembourg, at the Nürburgring, his best result, and repeated it the following year at Spa, in a race of rain and crashes in which only eight cars finished. In 1998 he was also sixth at Monaco.
He finished at Sauber, in 1999 and 2000. At the start at the Nürburgring in 1999 his car was left upside down after a collision, the heaviest accident of his career. That season he was sixth three times, in Canada, at Silverstone and in Austria, and in 2000 he did not score a point. It was his last year.
Six seasons with four teams and ten points in total, four of them from the two races in which he finished fifth.
What if Diniz had another car?
We took his real attributes and put him in the best car of each era: in a real driver's seat, against the team-mate that car actually had. 30 full seasons in each.
| Car | Team-mate | Finish | Wins | Titles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| McLaren1988 | Alain Prost-139 pts | P2 | 0.6 | 0% |
| Williams1992 | Riccardo Patrese-103 pts | P3.7 | 1.1 | 0% |
| Ferrari2002 | Rubens Barrichello-113 pts | P2.6 | 2.5 | 0% |
| Red Bull2013 | Mark Webber-129 pts | P2.7 | 2.6 | 0% |
| Mercedes2016 | Lewis Hamilton-185 pts | P2.2 | 1 | 0% |
| Red Bull2023 | Sergio Perez-120 pts | P2 | 4 | 0% |
| Cadillac2026 · 11th on the grid | Valtteri Bottas-3 pts | P14.4 | 0 | 0% |
The only one who beats him is Lewis Hamilton in the 2016 Mercedes: 185 points clear over a full season.
Rating by season
- First season
- 71 1995
- Peak
- 71 1995
- 2000
- 70 Sauber
6 seasons in the database, from 1995 to 2000. Our own rating, from 50 to 99.
Teams
Tags
Best year
1998
What would Pedro Diniz have achieved with a different car or in a different era?
Related drivers
His team-mates
5 team-mates across 6 seasons. When both finished the race, Diniz was ahead in 6 of 21; on the grid he started ahead in 26 of 98.
| Year | Team-mate | In the race | On the grid |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Roberto MorenoForti · 17 races | 2-1 | 8-9 |
| 1996 | Olivier PanisLigier · 16 races | 0-2 | 1-15 |
| 1997 | Damon HillArrows · 17 races | 3-2 | 3-14 |
| 1998 | Mika SaloArrows · 16 races | 0-2 | 5-11 |
| 1999 | Jean AlesiSauber · 16 races | 1-1 | 4-12 |
| 2000 | Mika SaloSauber · 17 races | 0-7 | 5-11 |
The first number is always Diniz's. A team-mate is whoever started the same race for the same team. "In the race" only counts races both finished, because a retirement says nothing about who was quicker. "On the grid" is the starting position, with penalties already applied.
Compare Diniz with another driver
Titles, wins, poles and podiums side by side, against any of the 789 drivers in history.
Keep reading
Where Pedro Diniz comes up in what we have measured, with our own numbers.
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