Valeria Carballo

Valeria Carballo (Valeria Vanessa Carballo Berroteran) is a Venezuelan driver who raced single-seaters in Europe for several seasons.

Initially, Valeria was based in Italy. She made her debut in Italian Formula Renault in 2011, driving for Team Costa Rica. After a difficult year with a string of DNFs in the middle, she was seventeenth in the championship, with a best finish of eighth, at Misano. This was one of two top-ten finishes that year, the other being a ninth at Monza. Team Costa Rica fielded five drivers over the season and only one, James Adams, was Costa Rican.

Whilst in Italy, she also raced in Formula Abarth, in the Italian and European series. She did not enter enough races to make any impact. All of her Formula Abarth outings were as part of Team Costa Rica.

In 2012, she tackled the European F3 Open championship, after a couple of races in the winter series, at Paul Ricard. Her finishes in the Trophy itself were not overly impressive, apart from one seventh at Monza, but she did quite well in the Cup class, earning many top-ten finishes. She was a team-mate to Tatiana Calderon at Emilio de Villota Motorsport, although they were racing in separate classes.

Her second season in Euro F3 started with the Winter Series, in which she scored one seventh place. In the series proper, she was part of the Campos team. It was a better season for her, or more consistent than before, with five top-ten finishes, the best being seventh, at Portimao. This was enough for twelfth overall. She was the highest-placed of the three Campos drivers, above Artur Janosz in thirteenth and Denis Nagulin in 19th.

Valeria’s career ended in 2014. Like several other Venezuelan racing drivers, she had been sponsored by PDVSA, the Venezuelan state-owned oil company. Pastor Maldonado was the highest-profile of these, and Milka Duno was among their number. At the end of 2013, PDVSA suspended its motorsport sponsorship programme and stopped paying all drivers competing abroad. This was due to certain individuals using the sponsorship programme to obtain large quantities of foreign currency. It is not known whether Valeria was one of these drivers.

(Image from http://www.euroformulaopen.net)