Max Wilson
Encyclopedia : M : MA : MAX : Max Wilson
Max Wilson was born on August 22, 1972 in Hamburg, Germany. He is a racing driver.
He started his motor racing career in 1985 in go-karts. His tenacious racing style led him to move into single-seaters in 1993, when he was offered a ride in the Brazilian Formula Ford Championship.
In 1994 he moved to the Brazilian Formula Chevrolet Championship and finished 2nd overall, behind Felipe Giaffone. Again, Wilson graduated up a level into the South American Formula 3 Championship for the 1995 season. Again he finished 2nd in the championship, this time behind Ricardo Zonta.
Wilson moved to Europe in 1996 to find a drive. He ended up in German F3 and finished 10th in the championship. But in 1997, Edenbridge Racing chose him to drive one of their Formula 3000 cars, alongside Werner Lupberger. He finished 5th in the championship, albeit only 19 points behind champion Ricardo Zonta after 10 rounds.
He stayed on at Edenbridge for the 1998 season, and also became a test driver for the WilliamsF1 team.
At the end of 1999, Wilson was offered a drive with the ailing Minardi team but a lack of financial backing saw him lose the ride at the last minute to a less experienced but more financially solvent driver. But all was not lost, after an impressive stint at Williams, Wilson spent 2000 as an F1 test driver for Michelin as the tyre manufacturer prepared to re-enter Formula One competition.
Unable to secure a full-time Formula One ride for the 2001 season, Wilson returned to the United States and joined the Arciero-Blair Racing Team to contest the Champ Car World Series. In his rookie year, he posted some inspiring results against the likes of Michael Andretti, Christian Fittipaldi and Kenny Brack.
Failing to raise a full Champ Car budget for 2002, Wilson packed his bags and headed for Australia where he joined the Briggs Motorsport V8 Supercar team. Keeping in mind he had never driven anything but an open-wheeler, the extra weight, right hand drive and sheer size of a V8 Supercar seemed a significant challenge for the young Brazilian. But Wilson had other ideas.
In just his second outing in a V8 Supercar, Wilson managed to snare fifth position on the grid at the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide. His trend for setting the pace during qualifying continued throughout the year, qualifying inside the top 15 starters in 11 of the 14 events during his debut year in the championship.
Wilson continued his impressive qualifying form with Dick Johnson Racing in 2003 where he capped off the year with his first podium finish in the championship at the final round of the year.
2004 was a tough year for Wilson when he failed to finish five of the rounds due to a variety of reasons while in a position for some solid results whilst driving for Triple 8 Racing.
A last-minute arrangement last year saw Wilson compete in the championship with Team Dynamik. During his 2005 campaign he again showed glimpses of his true potential which included a fifth place in the final race in China and a top ten finish at the Oran Park round.
For 2006, Wilson moved to the WPS Racing team.
He finished 8th and 16th in the Clipsal 500 opener of the season.
He currently resides on the Gold Coast.
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.