🇮🇹 Renzo Zorzi

Renzo Zorzi was an established professional racing driver who competed in Formula 1 between 1975 and 1977. He started seven Grands Prix for the Shadow team, joining the grid during a period that fielded competitors across a broad range of experience levels, from club racers to elite international professionals. His Formula 1 career was brief and he finished 16th in the championship standings across the 1977 season.[1]

Zorzi's racing record places him among established professionals, with a rating of 5,725. He contested the same races as drivers of considerably higher standing; he typically finished behind elite competitors such as Carlos Reutemann, who accumulated 146 Formula 1 starts across a much longer career, and the 1979 Formula 1 world champion Jody Scheckter. He did finish ahead of both Reutemann and established professional Carlos Pace on single occasions. Shadow, his main team, fielded 17 drivers across its time in the index and recorded one race win; Riccardo Patrese, its strongest driver on record, competed at the established professional level. Zorzi's Formula 1 career came at the close of the sport's widest era of entry, when grid fields included former champions and drivers who would not progress beyond occasional starts in the same races.[2]