Pizzonia ready for new challenge

Jaguar rookie Antonio Pizzonia is ready for his first Formula One race, the Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne in just under two weeks time. Pizzonia competed in F3000 last year and was also test driver for the Williams F1 team, before being signed ...

Jaguar rookie Antonio Pizzonia is ready for his first Formula One race, the Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne in just under two weeks time. Pizzonia competed in F3000 last year and was also test driver for the Williams F1 team, before being signed up to Jaguar for a race seat alongside Mark Webber.

Antonio Pizzonia.

Photo by Jaguar Cars and Wieck Media Services, Inc..

Pizzonia believes F3000 was good for him and despite only finishing eighth in the championship he's ready to show what he can really do: "I think I am in the right place at the right time and I think I am ready," he told Reuters."

"The F3000 thing was very important for me because I learnt all the tracks and also because before that I was winning everything, I was never lower than third on the grid and to be sometimes at the back was also good. The results that I had in F3000 don't matter any more because now I'm here and I have to prove what I can do."

Although he managed to write off a ?45,000 Jaguar road car not long after taking up his role with his new team, Pizzonia has been fast in winter testing, even breaking the lap record at Valencia recently. His first Grand Prix he knows will be special but he also wants it to be a 'normal' race.

"I'm sure its going to be very exciting," he said of Melbourne. "But when you have the helmet on you have to forget everything and concentrate on driving the car. It's going to be special, going to be different, but at the same time I don't want it to be different. I want it to be a normal race."

"Formula One is a new challenge, totally different and fantastic. But I've been working really hard to be here and now I just have to do my job and try to prove what I can do."