{"id":391197,"date":"2025-09-02T06:23:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T06:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/391197\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T06:23:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T06:23:15","slug":"f1-news-former-f1-driver-arrested-in-brazil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/391197\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 news: Former F1 driver arrested in Brazil"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Former
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTarso Marques pictured with Fernando Alonso in 2001. Image: XPB Images<\/p>\n

Police in Sao Paulo confirmed the 49-year-old was stopped in the early hours of Sunday while driving a Lamborghini Gallardo without plates.<\/p>\n

Officers said the car carried an \u201caccumulated debt of 1.3 million Brazilian reals\u201d \u2014 around $365,000 AUD \u2014 leading to Marques\u2019 detention. His lawyer has not commented publicly.<\/p>\n

Marques\u2019 F1 career spanned 24 starts, with 11 for Minardi in 1996 and 1997 before a return in 2001 for 13 races with the Italian outfit, driving alongside rookie Fernando Alonso.<\/p>\n

Neither scored points in that 2001 season, but Marques\u2019 ninth-place finishes in Canada and Brazil proved the team\u2019s highlights and allowed him to finish ahead of Alonso in the standings on countback.<\/p>\n

He remained with Minardi as a reserve the following year before moving back to Brazil, where he built a long career in stock cars and later became a television host. His last competitive outing came in 2018.<\/p>\n

Despite his modest results at the top level, Marques has often spoken warmly of his time with Alonso.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Former Minardi driver Tarso Marques has been arrested in Brazil. Image: XPB Images<\/p>\n

In December last year, during an interview with Aston Martin\u2019s website, he reflected on the Spaniard\u2019s extraordinary career and their bond as teammates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had some great teammates in my career: David Coulthard, Giancarlo Fisichella, Jarno Trulli, Mark Webber; but Fernando was by far the best one,\u201d Marques said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I had to pick one driver for my team, I would choose Fernando.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marques even went further, rating Alonso above some of the sport\u2019s icons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he was better than Schumacher when they raced against each other and, Brazilians will get upset, I would say he\u2019s better than Senna too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFernando deserves more titles than he has. Those two world titles are great, but it\u2019s not a true reflection of his talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Police said their investigation into the case is ongoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tarso Marques pictured with Fernando Alonso in 2001. Image: XPB Images Police in Sao Paulo confirmed the 49-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,6319,707,4200,116543,117381,79,135562,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-391197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-fernando-alonso","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-slot1_f1","13":"tag-slot2","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-tarso-marques","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115133271591598606","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}