CAREER

Karting 

Van der Garde has a successful karting career, winning the Dutch championship in 1998. In Super A he was best rookie in 2001 and world champion in 2002. 

Formula Renault 

The following year he joined the Formula Renault 2000 Championship and finished sixth, driving for Dutch team Van Amersfoort Racing. On the strength of his performance he became part of the Renault F1 Driver Development programme. 

Formula Three 

He joined the Formula 3 Euro Series in 2004 with Signature-Plus but after finishing the year ninth he was dropped by Renault Driver Development. A move to Team Rosberg for 2005 yielded another ninth in the series. 

For 2006 he joined the ASM team, which had dominated the season in 2005 with Lewis Hamilton and Adrian Sutil. The team claimed the top two places in the championship once more in 2006 – but it was van der Garde's team mates Paul di Resta and Sebastian Vettel who topped the leader board. The Dutchman ended the year sixth with a single victory.[1] During the year he was easily in the top four fastest drivers, but bad luck and mechanical problems, like not even starting the Bugatti Circuit race from pole because he broke down on the warm-up lap for the race, prevented him from making the mark in figures rather than 'what if's'. 

Formula Renault 3.5 Series 

On December 17, 2006 van der Garde also announced that he will drive in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series for Victory Engineering, a team that works together with Carlin Motorsport, causing him to say he will work together again with Sebastian Vettel, his ASM teammate. 

Giedo had podium positions in mind for the season, but even though he was the most consistent driver, always around 6th or 5th, he didn't win nor reach the podium. He finished the season 6th, 3rd in the Rookie of the year standings. He received several offers for tests in GP2, from teams like DAMS and Arden International. During his first tests, he impressed. 

He eventually signed with P1 Motorsport to compete in the 2008 season. 

In the first race of the 2008 FR3.5 season in Monza, Giedo managed to qualify on pole for the feature race. Due to regulations, he started 8th in the sprint race because of the reverse grid order in the sprint race. He came through the field to clinch victory in the sprint race, and easily converted his pole position into a victory in the feature race to show his fine form in the start of the season. 

In the second race at Spa, he narrowly missed out on pole by 0.033 seconds after previously topping the tables at all practice sessions. In the sprint race, Julien Jousse collided into him forcing Giedo into retiring from the race. Having qualified second for the feature race, he lost a position at the start. He immediately overtook Mikhail Aleshin on the first lap to regain his position, and later overtook Marco Bonanomi for the lead which he held to the checkered flag. 

After this strong start to the season, van der Garde was never headed in the championship and duly won it with two races remaining. 

GP2 Series 

Van der Garde signed to drive for the iSport International team in the 2008–09 GP2 Asia Series season, and in the 2009 GP2 Series season.[3] At the Hungaroring, he took his first victory, in the sprint race. He added two more wins before the end of the season en route to seventh in the championship standings. 

He had not been due to compete in the 2009–10 GP2 Asia season, but competed in the second round for Barwa Addax. He drove for the same team in the 2010 GP2 Series season, equalling his seventh place in the drivers' championship, whilst team-mate Sergio Pérez was runner-up. 

Van der Garde remained with Barwa Addax for the 2011 GP2 Asia Series season, with Charles Pic replacing the Formula One-bound Pérez as his team-mate. He finished third in the championship, behind Romain Grosjean and Jules Bianchi, and led the main series after two rounds despite not winning a race. He did, however, take his first series pole position and fastest lap at Catalunya. He originally took pole position for the Monaco round as well, but was then penalised for an incident in qualifying. He took no points from the weekend and lost his championship lead to Grosjean, who eventually secured the title with one round of the series remaining. He held second place in the championship until the last round of the season at Monza, where he had a disastrous weekend and slipped back to fifth in the standings, behind Luca Filippi, Bianchi and Pic. 

As part of his deal to become the Caterham Formula One team's reserve driver, van der Garde joined the marque's GP2 team for the 2012 season, alongside Rodolfo González. He returned to the winner's circle with race victories at Catalunya and Singapore, but again was not consistent enough to mount a championship challenge, finishing sixth in the points standings. 

Formula One 

2006 saw van der Garde being brought into the McLaren Young Drivers Programme. 

On December 15, 2006 van der Garde was confirmed as the Super Aguri Formula One team's test and reserve driver for the 2007 season. 

On February 1, 2007 van der Garde was unexpectedly announced by Spyker F1 as the team's test and reserve driver. On February 2, 2007 Super Aguri confirmed their belief their existing contract with van der Garde was still in force, stating "Super Aguri F1 Team has a valid contract with Giedo van der Garde to drive for the team in the position of Friday and Test Driver for the 2007 FIA Formula One World Championship. The contract was submitted by the SAF1 Team to the Contracts Recognition Board on 23rd January 2007." However, on June 20, 2007 van der Garde tested at Silverstone with Spyker, indicating the contract dispute has been resolved. Spyker originally intended van der Garde to be the team's Friday driver at the Australian Grand Prix, but he failed to obtain the necessary superlicence from the FIA in time. 

Van der Garde was a candidate to race in Formula One for Virgin in 2011, but that seat eventually went to Belgian Jérôme d'Ambrosio. 

On February 4 2012, it was announced that van der Garde would be Reserve Driver for Caterham F1 for the 2012 Formula One season. 

On February 1 2013, Van der Garde's management announced that Giedo will join Caterham as their second driver, next to Charles Pic.

Van der Garde driving for Victory Engineering at the Donington Park round of the 2007 Formula Renault 3.5 Series season.

Van der Garde driving for P1 Motorsport at the Silverstone round of the 2008 Formula Renault 3.5 Series season.

Van der Garde driving for iSport International at the Nürburgring round of the 2009 GP2 Series season.

Van der Garde driving for Barwa Addax at the Silverstone round of the 2011 GP2 Series season.

Van der Garde drove for Caterham in free practice for the 2012 Japanese Grand Prix.