Biography

António has marked himself out as the most talented Portuguese driver of his generation, capping his three years in car racing with an impressive performance testing for the Force India F1 Team at the rookie sessions in Abu Dhabi last winter.

A strong first year in Formula 3 with Motopark Academy in 2010 netted the rookie champion title and three race wins in the Euro Series, and he also shone at the end-of-season Macau GP by finishing sixth with Carlin. It was this British team which had also already given Antonio his first taste of GP3 at two events last year, when he scored points on his debut at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The 19-year-old's strong karting pedigree, which was crowned by him being chosen as a works driver for the famed Italian TonyKart team, led him into two seasons of Formula Renault 2.0 in 2008-09. In his first season of car racing he finished 2nd in the North European Championship, and followed this up by dominating the 2009 series. In that same season he also led the hotly-contested Eurocup for much of the year, only to lose results innocently to a disqualification and be pipped to the title by Albert Costa and Jean-Eric Vergne.