Rui Onorio

Rui Onorio (born in Tarawa, 25th March 1991) is a Kiribatian racing driver.

Early Life

Onorio was born in a normal family but his dad is a car enthusiast. When he was 12 years old the family moved to Auckland, New Zealand due to his dad's work assignment. He lived in New Zealand for 7 years and found his love in motorsport. He started go-karting by age 14 and by age 17 had already raced in some production car racing clubs. In his final year in New Zealand he raced in New Zealand Formula Ford Championship, finishing 3rd in standings with 2 wins. But then the family moved back to Kiribati, where hiatused racing for 2 years, but with internet he watched a lot of races online.

Comes the chance

thesantipa Union was scouting drivers from all over Oceania, where they invited some selected youngs to race go-kart around closed town tracks. Onorio wins a 20 minute race by over 1 lap, which guaranteed him to represent Kiribati in thesantipa Union. From late 2013 he moved to Australia where with other drivers Onorio learned racing from Formula Ford to Formula 3, where they had some test races with Mark the Car members.

thesantipa Clash days

Then all thesantipa Union drivers are raced together in a 570 hp engined modified Lola FN08, modificated to include new engine, steel brakes, and lower downforce configs to test the drivers. The championship utilised concistency-based result to which points are given same as the position they finished the race but smaller gathered points will be declared the champion. Onorio started the year hard before mid-season turnaround saw him gained more consistency before clinching the title on the final race of the season by a mere 8 points.

Move to Europe 1

Supported by thesantipa, Onorio made a move to Europe to help his racing career. He raced in GP3, sometimes FR3.5, and some GT3 endurance races. He finished 6th in GP3 with 1 feature race win. However due to personal reasons he had to move back to Australia for 2017.

Trying to keep racing

But in order to keep himself racing, he raced in Bathurst 6, 12 Hours, and 1000 km that year and Australian GT Endurance races.

Back to Europe and to the World

After ending his personal issues, Onorio make a move back to Europe. He raced in 2017/2018 Caterham Winter Series to acclitimise to a faster car before signing a deal with Lotto Racing to race in 2018 Prototype Challenge. However in As Fartway round he was injured in a crash that to be blamed by the poor asphalt condition. He was out for the rest of the season, recovering in Kiribati. Lotto Racing still signs him for 2019.