Sam Baromono

Sam Baromono (15/5/87) is a Belgian driver who currently competes in the Siemen Ausdauer Reject Series. He has competed in WEC, GP2 and Indy Lights.

Career

Early Career

Baromono racing career started as a 15 year old driving in the Belgian Kart Series hoping that the performances that he got would get him into the local touring car series. The young debut showed early talent as he won the first two rounds of the season with easy success. In the end he completely dominated winning that season and then the next with by miles as he showed some skills to compete. In the final race of the 2002 season he got an offer from Sam Schmidt Motorsports to compete in the Indy Lights series which Sam accepted.

Indy Lights

With he's offer being accepted he went to Phoenix International Raceway and Sam Baromono struggled in the bank track as he qualified 15th place. The race was a little better as he came in 11th place to open his account with 19 points. That would be his only race though as he didn't accept the other offers as went back to the Belgian Kart Series where he took his third championship in a row.

Champ Car

2004

Once again, he got an offer from the USA to compete over there with the offer being Champ Car team Walker Racing to replace Rodolfo Lavín. Sam Baromono looked at the offer and agreed to compete in all of the races outside of the United States before hopefully competing in all of the races for 2005. In the first race for the team, he's karting skills look on song with grid 3 before taking the victory in the race. Over at Toronto, Baromono struggled as a heavy crash in Part 1 of qualifying made his weekend very bad as he could only score a 16th when he crashed into the turn 3 wall. It was a lot better in Vancouver with his racing spirit as he finished in 11th place, 1 lap behind the winner Paul Tracy.

Montreal was once again as he got in Grid 4 for the race around Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. The weather was at it's best and Boromono got off to a brilliant start in the race as he went quickly up the leaderboard. He kept clean as he finished 4th to get above the 50 point mark.

Surfers Paradise was the race to be known as he had to move in the brand new number 16 car of Walker Racing. The car though didn't like the track as he struggled finishing only in 13th (Q) and 11th (R). The final race of the season he skipped as he crashed and being too damaged he didn't went onto the race.

Formula Renault 3.5

2005

With all hope gone, Sam Baromono got a call from Carlin Motorsport to compete in the final round of the Formula Renault 3.5 series. He of course laughed at the joke knowing he wasn't the best driver there was. Another driver should of taken this spot that was emptied by Will Power. He said why not and we went to Monza to compete in the 3.5 series. He came to Monza and showed potential but couldn't get into the points. But he did keep his seat with Mikhail Aleshin being his partner.

2006

The first race of the brand new season was at his home track and his first race he showed on his home track by taking both races and also taking home pole in the first race of the season. He was shocked as he had the early lead in the championship. His run continued as he took home pole and then race in Monaco to extend his lead in the championship after two races. But it was a little bit too soon as two retirements in Turkey made him lose a chunk of his lead in the championship.

After skipping the Misano round in which Sebastian Vettel took home 28 points from the round, Baromono came back in Spa and he didn't disappoint as the first race he scored a maximum of 17 points before the second race, he once again took pole position and then the race to extend the lead in the championship by 24 points. Germany was a little bit tougher for the Belgian as he could only get to 5th in Race 1 and 8th in race 2 and with rumors that Baromono will be moving F1 to replace Klein not helping his cause.

Domington Park became a chance as two 3rds in both races with the first race starting from pole position. But he was starting to worry with Danielsson taking home the victory in both races to give him a mathematical chance of champion. In Le Mans, he continue to lose valuable points as he could only muster a point which was in race 1 to his weekend with the 2nd race being a 16th place.

The final round still had four main contenders to take home the title and in the first race, Baromono couldn't get anything in the car as a 13th place made him even more in a nervous state. That meant Danielsson needed to win the race and Baromono 7th. Baromono went in a racing state as he couldn't try and give up the title. The title was he's to lose, and he did get as he took home a 6th place to take home the title by 11 points.

GP2

2007

While signing the contract for Toro Rosso, he also the signed the contract to compete for Durango as he said, that he wanted to also compete in GP2 and not in Formula Renault 3.5 series again. The contract was signed on the 10th March 2007 which meant he would only had one test to get use to the car and it shown as he couldn't get a good time to be competive. The nerves got to the best of him in the opening two round in Bahrain and Spain. Monaco wasn't even better for him as he scored his first retirement of the season before more bad results in France concluded his stay in GP2.

2010

After two years away from motorsport, he got a surprise one off call for Scuderia Coloni in the number 20 car after replacing Alberto Valerio in the Belgium round of the GP2 series. In his first race back in GP2, he struggled for speed and he almost didn't finish on a wet track to finish 14th and 12th. The high speed of Monza told a different story with Baromono scoring his first point of GP2 after retirements galore. He just missed out on points in the next race after being passed by Oliver Turvey on the last lap.

2011

After only just scrapping in the second driver role for Coloni, he delieved in his first race by scoring a 4th and 7th in the opening race in Turkey. The next two rounds was a complete shocker for the Belgian with two retirments in the feature races while only just going outside the top 10 places in the sprint. But in Valencia, Baromono struck back with a win in the sprint race and an 8th place. This gave hope for the Belgian and it delieved with a win in the feature race at Britian.

But a switch to the number 18 car, disturb the Belgian as once again he went on a bleak streak with only an 8th place in the Hungary feature race giving hope that he wasn't going to be dropped from the team. But Spa once again did Baromono good, with a clean sweep and a pole position in the feature race ending a brilliant weekend for the Belgian. Baromono ended his year with a late point in Monza to give potential for 2012.

Formula One

2007

After taking home the title in the Formula Renault 3.5. He confirmed an offer from Red Bull Racing to be the test driver for the Toro Rosso, in which he would do the pre season tests. In the test he did show speed within as he was setting the race pace in the opening test. The wait for a test drive in a Grand Prix was a failure. Even with a hope of a spot in Toro Rosso when they dropped Neel Jani, luck wasn't on his side with Sebastian Vettel joining the team before joining Red Bull Racing in 2009. For Baromono on the other hand, he would leave the motorsport arena, saying that he couldn't cope with bad results.

Career Results

Champ Car Results

Year	Team	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	Rank	Points
2004	Walker Racing	Reynard 02I	Ford XFE	LBH	MTY 1	MIL	POR	CLE	TOR 16	VAN 11	ROA	DEN	MTL 4	LAG	LVS	SRF 11	MXC DNS	17th	79

Formula Renault 3.5

Year	Team	1		2	3		4		5		6		7		8		9		Rank	Points
2005	Carlin Motorsport	ZOL		MON	VAL		LMS		BIL		OSC		DON		EST		MOZ		=29th	0
																	14	11
2006	Carlin Motorsport	ZOL		MON	IST		MIS		SPA		NUR		DON		LMS		BAR		1st	116
		1	1	1	Ret	Ret			1	1	5	8	3	3	10	16	13	6

GP2 Series

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	Rank	Points
2007	Durango	BHR		ESP		MON	FRA		GBR		EUR		HUN		TUR		ITA		BEL		VAL		36th	0
		15	13	18	12	Ret	18	20
2010	Scuderia Coloni	ESP		MON		TUR		EUR		GBR		GER		HUN		BEL		ITA		ABU			26th	1
																14	12	8	8
2011	Scuderia Coloni	TUR		ESP		MON		VAL		GBR		GER		HUN		BEL		ITA					=5th	40
		4	7	Ret	11	Ret	14	8	1	1	9	11	13	8	10	1	1	8	9

Career Summary

Year	Series	Team	Position
2003	Indy Lights	Sam Schmidt Motorsports	25th
2004	Champ Car	Walker Racing	17th
2005	Formula Renault 3.5	Carlin Motorsport	=29th
2006	Formula Renault 3.5	Carlin Motorsport	1st
2007	GP2 Series	Durango	36th
2010	GP2 Series	Scuderia Coloni	26th
2011	GP2 Series	Scuderia Coloni	=5th