BIOGRAPHY
Rio's racing career began at the age of six in karts. In 2005, now aged 12, he contested the Asian Karting Open Championship (ROK Junior), which he won the following year. For good measure he also won the Asian Karting Open Championship Formula 125 Junior Open series in 2006.
In 2007 he contested the Rotax Max Challenge Asia (Junior) series, where he finished runner-up.
His single-seater career began as year later in Formula Asia 2.0, in which he finished third overall. That year he also contested rounds of the Formula BMW Pacific series and Formula Renault Asian Challenge.
In 2009 he won the Formula BMW Pacific series with six wins in fifteen races, indeed, he visited the podium on twelve occasions that year. In addition he contested rounds of the 2009 AFR Championship, the Formula 3 Australian Drivers Championship (National A) and Formula BMW Europe.
2010 witnessed an even busier schedule, the youngster taking in GP3 (with Manor Racing), finishing the season fifth overall, as well as rounds of the British F3 Championship and Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup, as well as the Masters of F1 at Zandvoort and Macau.
Being the highest placed Manor driver in GP3, at season end Rio was rewarded with an outing in the Virgin F1 car in Abu Dhabi. Unfortunately, a gearbox issue meant he was unable to post a competitive time.
In 2011 he remained in GP3, but was only able to manage seventh overall. Furthermore, with teammate Adrian Quaife-Hobbs finishing higher in the rankings, Rio missed out on a second outing in the F1 car.
Other than GP3 in 2011, Rio found time for Auto GP, in which he finished the season seventh overall, and the GP2 Final in Abu Dhabi with DAMS.
For 2012 he stayed with GP2, albeit joining Carlin. However, other than pole at Spa, the season saw little to write home about, the youngster finishing 14th overall.
2012 also saw Rio back in an F1 car, the youngster driving the Marussia at the Young Driver Test at Silverstone - as did Max Chilton - thereby qualifying for his all-important superlicence.
He remained in GP2 in 2013, 214 and 2015, each year with a different team, but it was only really in that final season, with Campos Racing, that things came good, Rio taking his first win (Bahrain) and following up with two more to eventually finish the season fourth overall.
At the end of season F1 test in Abu Dhabi, Rio once again saw action, completing 56 laps in the Manor on his way to out-pacing Jordan King.
In late December reports began emerging linking Rio with the Manor seat in 2016, the youngster enjoying financial support from the Indonesian government and state oil company Pertamina.
On Thursday 18 February, a week after Pascal Wehrlein had been confirmed as one of Manor's drivers, Rio was unveiled as his teammate.
With a little more money in the bank, a Mercedes engine and Williams engineering know-how, much would be expected of the Banbury team in 2016, and Rio, like his teammate, had a far better package at his disposal than Will Stevens, Roberto Merhi and Alexander Rossi enjoyed in 2015.
While we have admitted to being disappointed with Wehrlein, we were mildly surprised by Rio.
OK, the youngster is not a world champion, but we've seen worse, a lot worse. Though a pay driver, it would be totally unfair to lump the Indonesian youngster with some of the no-hopers who have graced the grid over the years.
Indeed, during his short tenure at Manor he gave a good account of himself and kept the highly rated Wehrlein honest, out-qualifying the German a number of times and not only at tracks where he had the benefit of previous experience.
Whether rival drivers would be quite so willing to give Rio the thumbs up is a moot point for along with Esteban Gutierrez he was one of the most notorious for ignoring blue flags.
Suffering a transmission failure in Melbourne, having out-qualified his teammate, he was the innocent victim of the first lap melee in Russia and was caught out - like several others - by conditions at Silverstone. Those were the three DNF's, the rest of the time he brought it home, even managing to avoid the various pitfalls at Monaco.
Just before the summer break his funding dried up, and though given one free race by Manor was dropped over the holiday period in favour of Esteban Ocon and Mercedes money.
Though holding out hopes of a return to the grid in 2017, the loss of sponsor Pertamina, together with Manor's continued financial problems, it is doubtful that Rio will be back in an F1 car any time soon.
It was good while it lasted, and the youngster can say with honesty he gave it his best shot, but in reality there are more deserving talents out there.
