Giedo Gijsbertus Gerrit van der Garde (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈɣiːdoː vɑn dər ˈɣɑrdə]; born 25 April 1985) is a Dutch former racing driver and broadcaster, who competed in Formula One in 2013, and the FIA World Endurance Championship between 2016 and 2023. In sportscar racing, Van der Garde won the European Le Mans Series in 2016 with G-Drive.
Born and raised in Rhenen, van der Garde began competitive kart racing aged nine. After a successful karting career—culminating in his victory at the senior World Championship in 2002—van der Garde graduated to junior formulae. He won his first championship at the 2008 Formula Renault 3.5 Series with P1. After four seasons and several wins in the GP2 Series, van der Garde signed for Caterham in 2013, having previously tested for Super Aguri and Spyker, as well as being a member of the McLaren Young Driver Programme in 2006. Van der Garde made his Formula One debut at the Australian Grand Prix, but Caterham failed to score points all season with the CT03, with Van der Garde finishing a career-best 14th in Hungary. Failing to retain his seat for 2014, Van der Garde signed for Sauber as a reserve driver. Despite being contracted as a full-time driver for 2015, Sauber signed Felipe Nasr, resulting in a multi-million pound settlement after van der Garde sought international arbitration.
Van der Garde moved to sportscar racing in 2016, joining G-Drive Racing in both the European Le Mans Series and the FIA World Endurance Championship in the LMP2 class, winning the former in his debut season after achieving multiple victories. He spent five further seasons in WEC and the IMSA SportsCar Championship with Nederland, amongst six appearances at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Van der Garde retired at the end of 2023, becoming a full-time commentator and pundit for Viaplay.
Giedo Gijsbertus Gerrit van der Garde was born on 25 April 1985 in Rhenen, Netherlands.
Van der Garde had a successful karting career, winning the Dutch championship in 1998. In Super A, he was the best rookie in 2001 and the world champion in 2002. He was a protégé of Jos Verstappen.
The following year, van der Garde joined the Formula Renault 2000 Championship and finished sixth, driving for the Dutch team Van Amersfoort Racing. On the strength of his performance, he became part of the Renault F1 Driver Development programme.
Van der Garde 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, van der Garde 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 teammates Paul di Resta and Sebastian Vettel who topped the leader board. He ended the year sixth with a single victory.
On 17 December 2006, van der Garde also announced that he would drive in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series for Victory Engineering, a team that works together with Carlin Motorsport.
Van der Garde had podium positions in mind for the season, but even though he was the most consistent driver, always around sixth or fifth, he did not win nor reach the podium. He finished the season sixth, third in the Rookie of the year standings. He received several offers for tests in GP2, from teams like DAMS and Arden International, during which he impressed.
Van der Garde eventually signed with P1 Motorsport to compete in the 2008 season.
In the first race of the 2008 FR3.5 season in Monza, van der Garde managed to qualify on pole for the feature race. Due to regulations, he started eighth 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, van der Garde 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 van der Garde 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.
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. 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.
Van der Garde 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.