BIOGRAPHY
Starting off in Karts, Giedo had won the Dutch championship by the age of 13, going on to win the Super A World Championship four years later.
In 2003, he made his single-seater debut with Formula Renault 2000, finishing sixth overall with the Dutch team Van Amersfoort Racing. Based on the strength of this inaugural season, the youngster was invited to join the Renault F1 Driver Development programme.
For 2004 he moved up to the Formula Three Euroseries with Signature-Plus, however, a poor season, in which he finished ninth saw him dropped by the Renault F1 Driver Development programme. Another poor season followed in 2005, when, remaining in the Formula Three Euroseries, he moved to Team Rosberg.
For 2006 Giedo joined ASM which had dominated the previous season with Lewis Hamilton and Adrian Sutil. The team continued to dominate in 2006, however, it was Giedo's two teammates, Paul di Resta and Sebastian Vettel who took the honours, claiming the top two places in the championship respectively. Giedo ended the season sixth, having scored just one win, three points ahead of ASM's fourth driver, Kamui Kobayashi.
Nonetheless, during the year, Giedo was recruited to the McLaren Young Driver Programme and at season end was announced as Super Aguri's test and reserve driver for 2007. However, on February 1, Giedo was confirmed as Spyker's test and reserve driver leading to the two teams having to have the issue settled by the Contracts Recognition Board. In June, the youngster tested at Silverstone with Spyker, the dispute seemingly having been resolved in the Dutch team's favour.
After three seasons in Euroseries, for 2007 Giedo switched to the Formula Renault 3.5 Series with Victory Engineering. Although consistent, the Dutchman failed to score a single podium result, finishing the season sixth overall.
Despite the lack of results, Giedo received a number of offers to move to GP2 for 2008, however he opted to remain in Formula Renault 3.5 but switch teams to P1 Motorsport. It was a superb season for the Dutch youngster who scored five wins on his way to taking the championship.
At season end, Giedo signed to drive for iSport in the 2008-09 GP2 Asia Series and the 2009 main GP2 series. At the Hungaroring he took his first victory, in the sprint race, adding two more wins before the end of the season on his way to seventh in the final standings.
He had not been due to compete in the 2009-10 GP2 Asia series, but subsequently contested the second round with Barwa Addax. He remained with the team for the main series, once again finishing seventh overall.
Remaining with the Spanish outfit for 2011, Giedo third in the four-race GP2 Asia series and fifth in the main series, having led the championship after the first two rounds.
Having scored no points in Monaco, not helped by the fact he was penalised for an incident in qualifying, he lost the championship lead to (eventual winner) Romain Grosjean. While at Monza, where he had a disastrous weekend, he slipped back to fifth in the standings, behind Luca Filippi, Jules Bianchi and teammate Charles Pic.
Having been in contention for the Virgin F1 seat in 2011, which eventually went to Jerome d'Ambrosio, it is ironic that in 2012 it was Pic, Giedo's former GP2 teammate who would partner Timo Glock at the Russian team.
On February 4, it was announced that Giedo would be test and reserve driver for Caterham in 2012 while also contesting the GP2 Series with its GP2 team.
There were victories in Spain (Feature) and Singapore (Sprint) and four other trips to the podium, but at season end Giedo could only manage sixth.
As part of his contract with Caterham's F1 team he contested the Friday practice sessions at six Grand Prix.
On 1 February, days before the launch of its 2013 contender, Giedo was named as teammate to Charles Pic. "I know I am ready to take the step up to F1 and all the work I have done throughout my career, and particularly in the last year with this team, has brought me to my ultimate goal," said the Dutch youngster.
"Throughout 2012 I was able to fully integrate myself into the team, both through the FP1 sessions I ran at a number of tracks that were then new to me, and as Reserve Driver, fully embedded with the team throughout the season. Now I can continue to learn at the highest level of motorsport and show that I am ready for F1. I cannot wait to start work."
Despite Tony Fernandes assurances at the launch of the CT03, and Giedo's eagerness to "learn at the highest level", not only did Caterham fail to make any progress in 2013 it actually slipped backwards. Indeed, the most excitement the car caused in 2013 was during pre-season testing when Lotus technical director James Allison claimed that its exhaust outlet contravened Article 5.8.4 of the technical regulations, which prohibit the use of bodywork within a defined area with respect to the exhaust outlet. The FIA subsequently agreed and deemed the system to be illegal.
Climbing out of the car following FP1 at Bahrain, test and reserve driver Heikki Kovalainen, who had been hurriedly brought back in to the team at the expense of Ma Qinghua, stated the CT03 was essentially the previous year's car with nothing done to it. Ahead of the next race (Spain) the team introduced a major upgrade of the car but to little effect.
To put it simply, the team's best qualifying performance was in Belgium where Giedo, having got through to Q2, put the car 14th on the grid - a best ever result for the team, while the best race result was a brace of 14ths for Pic in Malaysia and Korea and another for Giedo in Hungary.
Over the course of the season Giedo came in for a certain amount of stick, particularly in the Pitpass podcasts, and while Pic, clearly had the edge, even Sebastian Vettel would have been hard pushed to extract much more from the CT03.
On the evening of 20 January 2014, in an interview with Infosport+, Team Principal Cyril Abiteboul revealed that Charles Pic would not be retained for 2014. Next day the team confirmed an all-new line-up, its third in as many seasons. However, just a couple of hours earlier, Sauber had confirmed Giedo as its Test and Reserve driver alongside Sergey Sirotkin.
Other than its financial situation, in 2014 Sauber was hampered by the overweight, underperforming Ferrari power unit, a chassis that was never really balanced and a haphazard fly-by-wire braking system, and there was little that Giedo, or any other test driver, could do to improve things.
Other than outings in the post Bahrain, Spanish and British Grands Prix, the Dutchman drove the C33 in FP1 at seven different events.
In the closing stages of the season, as Sauber led the calls for a change to the financial side of the sport, Giedo was widely linked with a 2015 race seat with the Swiss team, whilst Lotus was also mentioned.
However, with Sauber announcing an all-new driver line-up for 2015 (Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr), a race seat proper is clearly out of the question, leaving Giedo relying on a reserve role or maybe the survival of Caterham.
All in all, things look bleak for the ever smiling Dutch youngster.
