Jarno Trulli feels lucky. Should he?
After 252 starts - making him the eighth most-experienced Formula 1 driver - you'd think Jarno Trulli would have more wins than one.
Jarno Trulli says he was lucky to drive in Formula 1 - but you wouldn’t blame him if he felt otherwise. He left Renault the year before they became double champions and spent five years driving a Toyota that was never quite quick enough. After 15 years in the sport, he only had a single race win.
Now, in an exclusive interview with Formula 1 Insights, Trulli tells all; his rocky relationship with Renault, the troubles at Toyota, and the “mistake” that ultimately ended his time in F1.
Trulli was driving karts 12 months before his Formula 1 debut in 1997, but it certainly didn’t show. The then 22-year-old made an immediate impression in his maiden season. He secured fourth-place in Germany and displayed “maturity beyond his years” fighting for a podium in Austria (his engine blew). With the start of the Schumacher-dominance era beginning in the early 2000s, Trulli was moving around the grid, trying to find success. From Minardi to Prost to Jordan, nothing had yet fallen into place, until 2002 - he joined Renault.
Except, that wasn’t the case at all. “I would say with Renault, people, in general, were nice, but management was difficult to handle,” Trulli told me. He spoke of pressure from above as well as apparent favouritism toward Fernando Alonso when the pair were team-mates. Trulli said by the time he left the team at the end of 2004, “there was no space for me”.
His time at Renault was always slightly bumpy. During his first season, 2002, he was outscored by less-experienced team-mate Jenson Button - and the same thing happened in 2003 while partnered with a young Alonso. By 2004 though, things were looking up; with five races gone, Trulli was on equal points with Alonso - and things were about to get even better.
The 2004 Monaco Grand Prix was Trulli’s only race win in Formula 1. A moment, he said, “where all my sacrifices came into my mind in a couple of seconds.” He took pole on Saturday and led a long, tough race - highlighted by two safety car periods. In the final phase of the Grand Prix, Trulli held off former teammate Button behind, emerging victorious by just 0.497s. “Was one of those races where I really, I think I deserved a win after such a big effort,” Trulli said.
The win came at a time where Ferrari’s dominance peaked - Michael Schumacher had won the first five races of the season and would win seven more consecutively after Monaco. “That was the first race where another team with another driver were capable to be in the front,” Trulli said, adding the Renault car suited the famous street track due to its good traction and torque. “Me and Fernando, we were competitive all through the weekend and of course it required a perfect weekend to be in front of Michael and Ferrari.”
And while sometimes the first win can click everything into place, it was the opposite for Trulli, as he discovered four races later in France. Schumacher, as always, was leading, but Renault had a double podium within their grasp; Alonso was second and Trulli third. So would it stay that way? “I was trying to hold [Rubens] Barrichello behind me,” Trulli explained, “but unfortunately, lap-by-lap, I was struggling, struggling, struggling.” On the final lap, Barrichello snuck up the inside of Trulli at the penultimate corner, grabbing third place and bumping him off the podium, at Renault’s home race. “It was a mistake from myself, that was one of the lowest points of my career.”
Twenty days after the race in France, Trulli announced his departure from Renault at the end of 2004. He said Renault wanted to renew to keep him for 2005, but with certain conditions. “We are not talking about money, we are talking about [the] situation inside the team, on the technical side.” Trulli didn’t want to play second fiddle to Alonso and so he left. With three rounds to go in 04’, the Italian was sacked, The Guardian reported.
Renault hired Giancarlo Fisichella for 2005 and they went on to win the Constructors Championship for the next two years. Trulli said he has no regrets about leaving. “The next two years they had a very strong car to win the championship, but on the other hand, I knew there was no space for me.” While Alonso won two drivers championships and 15 races over 2005 and 2006; Fisichella, the man who replaced Trulli, only stood atop the podium twice.
After leaving Renault, Trulli signed for Toyota. The Japanese manufacturer joined the grid in 2002 but had little to show for their efforts. 2005 looked promising - Trulli was paired with six-time winner Ralf Schumacher in the first car designed by Mike Gascoyne - the man who had previously turned Jordan and Renault into race-winning teams. Gascoyne’s influence showed immediately; Toyota took a competitive step forward with five podiums and two poles. They finished 2005 as the fourth-placed constructor, behind Renault, McLaren, and Ferrari.
But, things began to unravel early in 2006 - after just three races, technical director Gascoyne left “amicably” according to the BBC. Trulli said he was fired. “I don’t think they have [fired Gascyone] correctly in terms of timing and also in terms of replacement,” Trulli explained. Pascal Vasselon was promoted to lead the technical department and Trulli believed he didn’t yet have the experience to handle the role. Toyota’s form dipped; just one podium in 2006 and none the following year.
Vasselon improved as time went on - two podiums in 2008 and eventually in 2009, Toyota found themselves back in a similar position to 2005, five podiums and a pole. But, as Trulli pointed out to me, the improvement was too little, too late - with the impact of the Global Financial Crisis, Toyota pulled the plug on their Formula 1 program at the end of 2009, ending their time in the sport. Trulli said he thought Toyota had everything they needed to win races, but they “had to probably push the limits a little bit further” to capture a victory. “It’s a shame.”
With Toyota leaving Formula 1, Trulli was without a seat and later joined the newly formed Lotus Racing team. That was a mistake, he said. “They promised improvement, they promised investment, and nothing happened.” The season was dismal; no points and a highest finish of P13. “This wasn’t really what I wanted,” Trulli said. 2011 was similarly uncompetitive and then, as the 2012 season was set to begin, Trulli was suddenly replaced by Russia’s Vitaly Petrov.
After 15 consecutive years in Formula 1, Trulli’s career was over. It was as if it had always promised more until it suddenly didn’t. He fought with the likes of Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, but his record will never quite reflect that, with just a single win and 11 podiums. Unlike that trio, who had dominant periods with Ferrari, Renault, and Mercedes respectively - Trulli jumped between seven teams in his career, hoping the next one would be better than the last.
Even so, Trulli puts things in perspective nowadays, nearly ten years after his retirement. “I believe that as a person I was lucky, considering where I was coming from.” He’s realistic too. “You need to be at the right place at the right moment,” he told me. For Trulli, he was either too early, leaving Renault before they won championships, or too late, joining Jordan right after they were Grand Prix winners. “I don’t want to consider myself unlucky, I only say that probably I deserve a better opportunity or chance,” he said. “I have tried to do the best with what I had, I can not really complain.”