Thisbiography of a living personneeds additionalcitations forverification. Please help by addingreliable sources.Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced orpoorly sourcedmust be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentiallylibelous. Find sources: "Tomas Scheckter" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(April 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Tomas Scheckter
Scheckter in 2010
Nationality	South African
Born	(1980-09-21)21 September 1980 (age 44) Monte Carlo, Monaco
Related to	Jody Scheckter (father) Ian Scheckter (uncle) Toby Scheckter (brother)
IRLIndyCar Series career
Debut season	2002
Current team	Team REDLINE Xtreme
Car number	07
Former teams	Conquest Racing Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Luczo Dragon Racing Vision Racing Panther Racing Chip Ganassi Racing Cheever Racing KV Racing
Starts	115
Wins	2
Poles	8
Best finish	7th in2003

Tomas Scheckter (born 21 September 1980) is a South African former racing driver best known for his time in theIndyCar Series.

Scheckter was born inMonte Carlo to1979Formula One World ChampionJody Scheckter and his first wife Pamela. Scheckter started racingkarts in South Africa at the age of 11 and it did not take long for the young driver to reach the podium. He had his first taste of a major championship as a teenager when he captured the South African Kart Championship in 1995. In 1996 he ventured on to the main circuit in the South AfricanFormula Vee series and soon after he was in the South AfricanFormula Ford Series where he posted two wins.

He had proven his speed in South African motorsports and was then off to Europe the following year where he entered the BritishFormula Vauxhall Junior series where he raced against the likes ofAntônio Pizzonia andTakuma Sato. Scheckter earned third in the championship with one victory and one pole. He was also named series Rookie of the Year.

In 1999, Scheckter won theFormula Opel Euroseries championship with a record eight victories and eight poles, and in the process broke all the winning records previously set byMika Häkkinen,Rubens Barrichello, andDavid Coulthard. That success landed him a drive that same year in the last two races of theFormula Nissan championship whichFernando Alonso had dominated that whole season. Even though Scheckter was with a new team for this brief stint in Formula Nissan, he captured a win, two poles and a second-place position.

Scheckter moved on to the Formula 3 Series in 2000, and in his rookie year, he was the runner-up in theBritish Formula 3 Championship with two victories and two pole positions, while contending again with drivers such asTakuma Sato,Antônio Pizzonia andNarain Karthikeyan. He also had time to race in the prestigious Marlboro Masters F3 race atZandvoort where he took the third podium position. To complete his year, he competed in the final four races of the FIAFormula 3000 Championship, finishing second atHockenheim behind future IRL teammateTomáš Enge.^[1] He also raced in theOpen Telefónica by Nissan, finishing as championship runner-up.

Scheckter was signed as a test/reserve driver byJaguar for the2001 Formula One season, but was soon let go after being found "kerb crawling."^[2][3][4][5]

2002

Scheckter was signed to drive forEddie Cheever'sRed BullCheever Racing in theIndyCar Series for the2002 season. He was theIndianapolis 500 co-Rookie of the year (with 4th placedAlex Barron) after leading 85 laps of the race. However, Cheever soon grew tired of Scheckter's frequent crashes, and looked to replace him withBuddy Rice. AtMichigan International Speedway, Cheever was forced to race Scheckter due to contractual obligations, but gave Rice the best equipment and crew. In the2002 Michigan Indy 400, Scheckter won by 1.7 seconds over Rice for his first IRL win, while team owner Cheever crashed out. However, he was soon gone from Cheever Racing.

2003-Mid 2005

In 2003, he moved toTargetGanassi Racing with mixed results, often being criticized for his inconsistency and frequency of crashing, finishing well behind title winning teammateScott Dixon. In 2004 he moved toPanther Racing to replace double championSam Hornish Jr. In 2004 and 2005, Scheckter and Panther were the dominantChevrolet powered team, greatly outpacing other teams powered by what many considered the weakest engine in the series. Scheckter broke through a horrendous string of bad luck, defeating Hornish to win theBombardier Learjet 500 atTexas Motor Speedway in June 2005 for his second career victory.

Mid 2005-07

In mid-2005, Scheckter was announced as one of the drivers forA1 Team South Africa in the inauguralA1 Grand Prix series. He raced in the rounds atEuroSpeedway Lausitz andEstoril. In2006, Scheckter drove forTony George andPatrick Dempsey'sVision Racing alongside teammateEd Carpenter and finished 10th in points. In2007, Scheckter again raced for Vision Racing sponsored byJoost. The South African was one of the few drivers that year to challenge theTeam Penske,Andretti Green Racing andTarget Chip Ganassi Racing drivers on a regular basis during races, on occasion leading races. He ultimately finished 10th in points for the second season in a row with a best finish of fifth.

2008-09

For the2008 season, Scheckter was scheduled to race forLuczo Dragon Racing in three races: Kansas, Indianapolis, and Infineon. Despite not finishing at Kansas or Indy, Scheckter's runs gave the team additional race time at Texas, Detroit, and Chicagoland. Scheckter failed to return any good results in the additional races despite qualifying well. He did not return to the team in 2009, as it became a full-time team with 2008 Indy Lights championRaphael Matos. Scheckter was reported to be joiningBeck Motorsports, now renamed Team 3G, starting at the 2009 Long Beach race, but the deal never materialized. Scheckter personally secured sponsorship fromMonaVie which he shopped to a number of teams, ultimately signing withDale Coyne Racing for a second week program. He qualified 26th and finished 12th. Later in the 2009 season he returned with the MonaVie sponsorship withDreyer & Reinbold Racing sharing the #23 car withMilka Duno, who brought her own sponsorship, as well as driving a third car, the #43, in select races.

2010

In 2010, Scheckter once again brought Mona-Vie to Dreyer & Reinbold Racing to drive the #23 car in the Indianapolis 500. Scheckter had a great race, and was in the top for the majority of the race. In the last 20 laps a fuel mileage problem forced Scheckter to conserve fuel and he dropped back to finish 12th. Scheckter's teammate Mike Conway suffered a leg injury in a terrible crash at the Indianapolis 500 and Scheckter was hired to fill in for Conway at Texas and Iowa finished 15th and 19th at each. Later in the year he was hired to drive for Conquest Racing at Chicago and Kentucky. Scheckter finished 28th at Chicago, but after having a surprisingly quick time in practice and qualifying he was accidentally hit from behind by Alex Lloyd in the first 10 laps and made contact with the wall that ended his day. At Kentucky Scheckter struggled getting the car up to speed and finished 14th.

2011

For 2011, Scheckter joined KV-SH Racing and drive the #07 Team Redline Extreme car in the Indianapolis 500. AtLoudon, Scheckter would replace the injuredJustin Wilson, driving the number 22 car forDreyer & Reinbold Racing. Schekter would also drive the number 07 car inBaltimore. For the season's final race in Las Vegas, Scheckter drove the #57 car for Sarah Fisher Racing with Angie's List as the primary sponsor, but the race was red flagged due to a multicar pile up early in the race in whichDan Wheldon was killed.

He is the son of1979Formula One World ChampionJody Scheckter and the nephew of racerIan Scheckter. He also has an older brother namedToby, and a younger brother Hugo, who often updates Tomas's fans through his Twitter page.^[6]

In April 2020, Scheckter announced that he had suffered multiplestrokes and required a heart operation at theMayo Clinic.^[7] Scheckter currently resides in theUnited Kingdom.^[8]

(key) (Races inbold indicate pole position) (Races initalics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races inbold indicate pole position) (Races initalics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races inbold indicate pole position; races initalics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races inbold indicate pole position)

¹ Run on same day.

² Non-points-paying, exhibition race.

Scheckter started on the fourth row of the Indy 500 his first seven races until 2009, when he qualified 26th.

(key) (Races inbold indicate pole position) (Races initalics indicate fastest lap)

• List of select Jewish racing drivers

• Official website
• IndyCar Driver Page

• 1980 births
• Living people
• A1 Team South Africa drivers
• Auto GP drivers
• British Formula Three Championship drivers
• Indianapolis 500 drivers
• Indianapolis 500 Rookies of the Year
• IndyCar Series drivers
• International Formula 3000 drivers
• People from Monte Carlo
• South African Jews
• South African racing drivers
• White South African people
• Chip Ganassi Racing drivers
• West Competition drivers
• A1 Grand Prix drivers
• KV Racing Technology drivers
• Dreyer & Reinbold Racing drivers
• Dale Coyne Racing drivers
• Dragon Racing drivers
• Vision Racing drivers
• Panther Racing drivers
• Cheever Racing drivers
• Conquest Racing drivers
• Sarah Fisher Racing drivers
• Paul Stewart Racing drivers
• 21st-century South African sportsmen

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from September 2020
• Use South African English from August 2012
• All Wikipedia articles written in South African English
• BLP articles lacking sources from April 2008
• All BLP articles lacking sources