Ricardo MaurÃcio
Ricardo Maurício ( born January 7, 1979 in São Paulo) is a Brazilian racing driver.
Career
Maurício began his motorsport career in 1989 in karting, where he was active until 1994. Then he gave his 1995 Formula racing debut in the Brazilian Formula Ford, which he won in straight away. In 1996, the Brazilians to Europe and competed in the British Formula Vauxhall. He finished at the end of the season in fourth place in the overall standings. In 1997 he competed in the British Formula 3 Championship and finished the season in eleventh place overall. A year later, he remained in this championship and improved with two podium finishes in seventh place in the drivers' standings. His performance was outshone by his compatriots Mario Haber field, Enrique Bernoldi and Luciano Burti, which took the top three positions in the championship. He also finished second at the prestigious Macau Grand Prix behind Peter Dumbreck.
In 1999, Maurício in the international Formula 3000 championship and was first appointed to the champion team Super Nova Racing. Towards the later runner-up Jason Watt, who was his teammate, he had no chance and was replaced after only three races by David Saelens. The Brazilian broke out Markus Friesacher from the RSM Marko supervised Red Bull Junior Team. Although he could not qualify for three races in Spa -Francorchamps, he succeeded but to score a point. At the end of the season, he finished 22nd overall and had scored just one point less than his team-mate and compatriot Bernoldi. 2000 remained Maurício together with Bernoldi at RSM Marko. The rider was after he had not finished the first seven races, achieving his first podium placement in Formula 3000 on the Hungaroring in third place. At the end of the season, he finished 17th place in the Drivers' Championship and again had only one point behind Bernoldi.
While Bernoldi was changed to Formula 1 2001, Maurício initially had no cockpit, since RSM Marko Patrick Friesacher and Antonio García had committed. However, RSM Marko separated after four races of García and Maurício could enter for the fifth race in the 2001 Formula 3000 season. He did not disappoint his team and was in second place at the Hungaroring and in third at Spa- Francorchamps on the podium twice. The season he finished as the best RSM Marko pilot in eighth place overall. In 2002, the Brazilian played his fourth season in Formula 3000 for RSM Marko. With a third place in his home race at Interlagos, he had a good start into the new season. In the further course of the season, however, he failed to build on these achievements and he took a position behind his teammate Patrick Friesacher the eleventh overall. Once again, his placement was outshone by the performance of other Brazilians, there were placed in this season with Ricardo and Rodrigo Sperafico and Mario Haber field and Antonio Pizzonia four Brazilians in front of him. Remembering his accident was the last race in Monza. Maurício drove close behind Rob Nguyen's race car, took off after a collision and overturned several times. In the outlet zone began his racing car fire. The rider could leave the car itself and was uninjured.
After Red Bull had ceased production of the Brazilian in 2003, he was no longer in the cockpit formula 3000th For Racing Engineering, he joined in the Spanish Formula 3 Championship and won with six wins the championship.
After 2004 found no cockpit in a formula series, he returned to the Formula racing back. He moved to touring car racing and completed four races in the Stock Car Brasil. In the next few years he remained in the Stock Car Brasil and improved from a 16th place in 2005 to a tenth place in 2006. Having 2007 shows with his first win ninth overall, he won in 2008 with five wins the championship title of the Stock Car Brasil. In 2009, he finished the season in fifth place in the championship. He also began, as in previous years, in some races of the Argentine TC2000 touring car series and won a race in this series. He also won the Endurance Cup of TC2000 and was with three wins fourth in the Brazilian GT3 Championship.
In 2010 he starts in parallel in the Stock Car Brasil and the Brazilian GT3 Championship.