Michael Caruso (born 25 May 1983) is an Australian professional motor racing driver. Caruso competes in the Pirtek Enduro Cup, co-driving a Chevrolet Camaro Mk.6 for

Team 18 Team 18 (formerly known as Charlie Schwerkolt Racing) is an Australian motor racing team currently competing in the Supercars Championship, running two Chevrolet Camaro ZL1s. The team's current drivers are Anton De Pasquale and David Reynolds ...

alongside

Mark Winterbottom Mark James "Frosty" Winterbottom (born 20 May 1981) is an Australian former professional racing driver. He last competed in the Supercars Championship, Repco Supercars Championship, driving the No. 18 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Team 18. His career ...

Early career

Caruso began his career in

go-kart A go-kart, also written as go-cart (often referred to as simply a kart), is a type of small sports car, close wheeled car, open-wheel car or quadracycle. Go-karts come in all shapes and forms, from non-motorised models to high-performanc ...

s at age 12,http://www.michaelcaruso.com.au/about/ About Michael Caruso before graduating to

Formula Ford Formula Ford, also known as F1600 and Formula F, is an entry-level class of single-seater, open-wheel formula racing. The various championships held across the world have historically been an important step for many prospective Formula One dri ...

in 2001. He moved to

Formula 3 Formula Three (F3) is a third-tier class of open-wheel formula racing. The various championships held in Europe, Australia, South America and Asia form an important step for many prospective Formula One drivers. History Formula Three (adop ...

in 2002 and won the Australian Formula 3 Championship in 2003. Despite offers to move to FIA

Formula 3000 Formula 3000 (F3000) was a type of open wheel, single seater formula racing, occupying the tier immediately below Formula One and above Formula Three. It was so named because the cars were powered by 3.0 L engines. Formula 3000 championship ...

in Europe, he chose to join the

Holden Young Lions Holden Young Lions was a brand used by Australian motor vehicle manufacturer Holden for its young racing driver development program. First appearing in 1997, the program was operated by a number of teams over the years. In 2014 the Holden Youn ...

team in the V8 Supercars Development Series for 2004. After a poor start he quit the team mid-season. In 2005 Caruso competed in the first two rounds of the Australian Formula 3 Championship, before moving to Europe to be test and reserve driver for the F3000 outfit

Team Astromega Team Astromega was a racing team from Belgium, headquartered in Heist-op-den-Berg and created in 1995 by Mikke Van Hool. The team has competed in A1 Grand Prix, Formula Renault 1.6 Belgium and International Formula 3000. History Team Astromeg ...

Touring cars

Development Series

In 2006 he returned to Australia and to the V8 Supercars Development Series with Jim Morton's Decina Racing, finishing 4th in the

championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this sys ...

. In

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

he was runner-up in the Development Series, again with Jim Morton's renamed Ford Rising Star program. He also made three main-game

V8 Supercars The Supercars Championship, also known as the Repco Supercars Championship under sponsorship and historically as V8 Supercars, is a touring car racing category in Australia and New Zealand, running as an International Series under Fédération I ...

starts in this period. The first of which was at the

2006 Bathurst 1000 The 2006 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 was an endurance race for V8 Supercars, held on 8 October 2006 at the Mount Panorama Circuit near Bathurst in New South Wales, Australia. It was Round 9 of the 2006 V8 Supercar Championship Series. The ...

as a replacement for Mark Porter in a

Brad Jones Racing Brad Jones Racing is an Australian motor racing team owned by Brad Jones based in Albury. The team competes in the Supercars Championship and the Super2 Series. Recently they have also returned to Australian Formula Ford where Brad and Kim be ...

entry. Porter had a serious crash on the Friday of the event and later died in hospital. In 2007, Caruso entered the

Sandown 500 The Sandown 500 (commercially titled Penrite, Penrite Oil Sandown 500) is an annual endurance racing (motorsport), endurance Auto racing, motor race which is staged at the Sandown Raceway, near Melbourne, Victoria, Australia from 1964. The even ...

and

Bathurst 1000 The Bathurst 1000 (known for sponsorship reasons as the Repco Bathurst 1000) is a Touring car racing, touring car race held annually on the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is currently run as part of the Supe ...

with

WPS Racing WPS Racing was an Australian motor racing team that competed in Australian V8 Supercar racing between 2004 and 2007. It was owned by Queensland businessman Craig Gore and sponsored by his Wright Patton Shakespeare company. History In 2003, ...

Garry Rogers Motorsport

In 2008, Caruso was signed to compete in his first full

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...

in V8 Supercars, driving a

Holden Commodore (VE) The Holden Commodore (VE) is a full-size car that was produced from 2006 to 2013 by Holden, the former Australian subsidiary of General Motors. Dubbed Holden's "billion dollar baby", the car was available as the Holden Berlina—the mid-ra ...

for

Garry Rogers Motorsport Garry Rogers Motorsport is an Australian motor racing team. It is owned by retired racing driver Garry Rogers who began the team to further his own racing efforts. Based in Melbourne, originally out of a Nissan dealership owned by Rogers, the t ...

, where he replaced

Dean Canto Dean Justin Canto (born 24 September 1980) is a multiple-championship winning Australian motor racing driver. Best noted as a Supercars driver, Canto was the inaugural winner of the second-tier V8 Supercar development series in 2000, and the fi ...

. In

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

, Caruso won his first championship race at the Skycity Triple Crown at

Hidden Valley Raceway Hidden Valley Raceway is part of the Hidden Valley Motorsports Complex, located at 171 Hidden Valley Road, Hidden Valley, from Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. The Hidden Valley Motorsports Complex includes a 1 km drag racing track ...

. He also finished on the podium at the 2009 Bathurst 1000, co-driving with

Lee Holdsworth Lee Robert Holdsworth (born 2 February 1983) is an Australian semi-retired racing driver. He won the 2021 Bathurst 1000 alongside Chaz Mostert and finished his full-time career after the 2022 season, after nearly two decades of racing. Histor ...

, and in the second race of the

Sydney 500 The Sydney 500 was an annual motor racing event for Supercars Championship, Supercars, held at the Homebush Street Circuit in Sydney Olympic Park, New South Wales, Australia. The event was a regular part of the Supercars Championship from 2009 ...

. Caruso stayed at the team until 2012, only scoring one further podium in this period. Holden VE Commodore of Michael Caruso 2012

Nissan Motorsport

In 2013, Caruso moved to

Nissan Motorsport , abbreviated as Nismo, is a division of Nissan Motorsports & Customizing focused in motorsport and performance-oriented car models for Nissan. Nismo was initially a company, , formed in 1984 as a result of a merger of two motorsport departmen ...

, a four car team running the Nissan Altima L33. The team was the first to introduce a new manufacturer to the category under the New Generation V8 Supercar (then known as Car of the Future) regulations in

2013 2013 was the first year since 1987 to contain four unique digits (a span of 26 years). 2013 was designated as: *International Year of Water Cooperation *International Year of Quinoa Events January * January 5 – 2013 Craig, Alask ...

. The team largely struggled with the new package and Caruso finished 23rd in the championship. The highlight of the year for Caruso was at the Winton 360, where he finished second in the opening race. Caruso had been leading the race at the conclusion of the first half of the split race, however was beaten by teammate James Moffat to victory in the second half. In

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

, Caruso finished a career-high 10th in the championship, despite only scoring one podium, in the second race of the

Gold Coast 600 The Gold Coast 500 (known for sponsorship reasons as the Boost Mobile (Australia), Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500) is an annual motor racing event for Supercars Championship, Supercars, held at the Surfers Paradise Street Circuit in Surfers Parad ...

. Caruso also took pole at the non-championship

V8 Supercars Challenge The Supercars Challenge was an annual non-championship motor racing event held for cars from the Supercars Championship, and formerly from V8 Supercars, the Shell Championship Series and the Australian Touring Car Championship. The event was he ...

race, a support event to the

Australian Grand Prix The Australian Grand Prix is an annual Formula One motor racing event, taking place in Melbourne, Victoria. The event is contracted to be held at least until 2035. One of the oldest surviving motorsport competitions held in Australia, the Gran ...

. Having featured

Norton 360 Norton 360 is an "all-in-one" Internet security#Security suites, security suite developed by Gen Digital, formerly Symantec and later NortonLifeLock. The current suite was released in 2019 as a replacement for Norton Security, which had itself re ...

sponsorship in 2013 and 2014, from 2015 onwards, Caruso sported a corporate

Nissan is a Japanese multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer headquartered in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan. The company sells its vehicles under the ''Nissan'' and ''Infiniti'' brands, and formerly the ''Datsun'' brand, with in-house ...

and

Nismo , abbreviated as Nismo, is a division of Nissan Motorsports & Customizing focused in motorsport and performance-oriented car models for Nissan. Nismo was initially a company, , formed in 1984 as a result of a merger of two motorsport departmen ...

livery. After another lean year in

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

, Caruso began

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

strongly at the season-opening

Adelaide 500 The Adelaide 500, officially the BP Adelaide Grand Final, is an annual motor racing event for Supercars held on the streets of the east end of Adelaide, South Australia between 1999 and 2020 and again from 2022. The event uses a shortened form ...

. Caruso finished second in the Sunday race and led the championship following the event. At the 2016 CrownBet Darwin Triple Crown, Caruso won his second career championship race, seven years after his first and coincidentally once again at Hidden Valley Raceway. On 30 January 2019 it was announced that Caruso would lose his drive with Nissan Motorsport. He will not compete full time in 2019 and is yet to announce an ENDURO drive. File:Nissan L33 Altima of Michael Caruso 2014.JPG, Caruso placed tenth in the 2014 V8 Supercars Championship driving a

Nissan L33 Altima The Nissan Altima is a mid-size car manufactured by Nissan since 1992. It is a continuation of the Nissan Bluebird line, which began in 1955. The Altima has historically been larger, more powerful, and more luxurious than the Nissan Sentra bu ...

File:Nissan Altima of Michael Caruso (Adelaide, 2018).jpg, The

Nissan Altima The Nissan Altima is a mid-size car manufactured by Nissan since 1992. It is a continuation of the Nissan Bluebird line, which began in 1955. The Altima has historically been larger, more powerful, and more luxurious than the Nissan Sentra b ...

of Michael Caruso at the

2018 Adelaide 500 The 2018 Adelaide 500 was a motor racing event held on the weekend of 2 to 4 March 2018 at the Adelaide Street Circuit in Adelaide, South Australia. It marked the twentieth running of the Adelaide 500 and was the first event of sixteen in the ...

Career results

Karting career summary

Racing career summary

Supercars Championship results

(Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Bathurst 1000 results

† Porter was the entered driver but was killed in a support race. Caruso would replace him.

TCR Australia results

References

External links

Official Website

Michael Caruso
V8 Supercars Official Profile * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Caruso, Michael 1983 births Australian Formula 3 Championship drivers Living people Racing drivers from Sydney Sportsmen from New South Wales Supercars Championship drivers Australian Endurance Championship drivers Kelly Racing drivers Garry Rogers Motorsport drivers Nismo drivers Porsche Carrera Cup Australia drivers Racing drivers from New South Wales TCR Australia Touring Car Series drivers 21st-century Australian sportsmen