Diniz's father was a racer in his day, and now runs a huge chain of supermarkets in Brazil, so young Pedro was well placed to have a stab at racing. He completed a year in the Sud-Am F5 series before heading to Europe in 1991, where he secured a seat in the crack West Surrey Racing team. A season spent alongside the very quick Rubens Barrichello and Jordi Gene highlighted his shortcomings, but a move to Edenbridge Racing in 1992 showed he had learned much.

    For 1993, Diniz jumped up to compete in F3000 with Forti Corse but was out of his depth. Staying on for 1994, he conjured up one fourth-place finish at Estoril, but the Brazilian's performances, while showing some promise, failed to convince.

    Eyebrows were therefore raised when his name appeared on the 1995 F1 entry list paired with fellow countryman Roberto Moreno at Forti. In the event he was neat and tidy and proved evenly matched with his experienced colleague. However, the car was clearly uncompetitive and, with a massive personal sponsorship budget, Diniz lost no time in obtaining a drive for 1996 at Ligier, where his goal was to secure a championship point, which he achieved on two occasions.

    For 1997 Diniz (accompanied by his wedge of cash) was tempted away by Tom Walkinshaw to join his newly reconstructed Arrows team as number two to Damon Hill. Again he silenced the doubters with a number of more-than-respectable performances. He even managed to out-qualify and out-race the reigning World Champion at Spa, of all places, and took a career-best fifth place in the Luxembourg Grand Prix. For 1998 the Brazilian found himself paired with Mika Salo and again had his moments, interestingly scoring points at the two classic circuits of Monaco and Spa.

    It was patently obvious to Diniz that to climb further up the grid he needed a better car than Arrows had thus far provided, so he was on the move once more. Brushing aside threats of litigation for breach of contract, Pedro prepared to test himself against Jean Alesi at Sauber. Amazingly he outscored his team leader by three points to two, which proved nothing more than that, on this occasion, modest consistency paid more dividends than blinkered audacity.

    For 2000 Diniz remains a Formula 1 fixture, trying once more to convince the sceptics that he is worthy of a place on the grid on merit, rather than by dint of the vast millions which ease his way into the cockpit.

(c) 'Who is Who' by Steve Small, 2000