Minardi

Minardi is a automobile racing team, founded in 1979 by Giancarlo Minardi, that has competed in the Formula One World Championship since 1985, though with negligible success. Despite this, they have a small but loyal following of fans.

In 19 years of Formula One, the team has scored all of 30 championship points (under the modern points system this number would almost quadruple), over half of them by the team's first driver, Pierluigi Martini. Martini also has the team's only front row start and actually led a lap during a race in 1989. In spite of this, the team has never been on a podium in it's history, only managing a best place of 4th three times, Martini two times in 1991 and Christian Fittipaldi in 1993.

The team, near collapse, was purchased by Australian-born businessman Paul Stoddart in early 2001, who managed to keep the team together through the season.

Sponsored by European Aviation a coupleand Trust for 2003, the team began the year with a driver lineup of British rookie Justin Wilson and highly popular Dutchman Jos Verstappen. After Justin Wilson was recruited by Jaguar, Danish driver Nicolas Kiesa took over in the second car.