Nicky Pastorelli

11/4/1983

Record updated 23-Apr-07

Nicky Pastorelli is a Dutch-Italian racing driver. He has done a partial season in Champ Car for Rocketsports in 2006.

Nicky was born in The Hague, Netherlands he currently resides in Rijswijk, The Netherlands. When Nicky was 10 years old, he was first introduced to the sport of karting. He drove his first laps at an empty parking lot. He fell in love with the sport and less than a year later he was making practice laps at the professional Strijen Circuit. In 1993, Nicky started in the Mini League followed by Junior League, in which he had his first successes.

At the age of 14 Nicky became a member of Peter de Bruin’s karting team. He stayed there for several seasons and drove the ICA and Formula A Leagues. In 2000 Nicky moved to the Formula Arcobaleno League and two years later, in 2002, his outstanding performances and tournament results made him part of the distinguished Formula Renault 2000 championship.

In 2003 Nicky participated in the European Formula 3000 with great success. Impressing on his debut and going on to take a second and a fourth place.

Switching to the Draco Junior Team for the 2004 Superfund Euro F3000 Series, he took the championship with a win at the final race at the Nürburgring in Germany.

This led to a Formula 1 test with Minardi and with Walker Racing in the Champ Car World Series in December 2004.

In 2005 he became the official Jordan Grand Prix test driver and became the first driver in the Young Driver Development Program of the Midland F1 Team. However when one of his primary backers dropped out, he went to Portland to test for Rocketsports.

Nicky made his Champ Car debut at Houston in the second race of the 2006 season, in Rocketsports' only entry. He qualified 16th of the 17 cars and retired after 29 laps with a mechanical failure. His first finish, in 15th, came in the next race at Monterrey. In Milwaukee he finished a strong 10th.

Two rounds later at Toronto, it was reported that Nicky had run out of money and Rocketsports failed to run his car. However he returned for the subsequent round in Edmonton. He took a fine 6th in Montreal, Canada.



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