Born: 19/9/73 Nationality: Brazilian Team: Toyota First GP: Australia 2003 Best result: 6th 2003 position: 13th Previous teams: N/A

Cristiano da Matta goes quietly about his business in Formula One barely noticed by anyone outside his team.

That is not to say that he does a bad job, simply that he rarely does anything outstanding.

Da Matta is evenly matched with team-mate Olivier Panis and has proved more than good enough to deserve his seat.

But whether that will be enough to keep him at Toyota in 2005, when the team expect to move up several gears, remains to be seen.

In his debut season, the Brazilian did show enough flashes of promise to suggest he has a future.

It seemed throughout 2003 that Da Matta was building momentum to a point where he would take off, but a year later he is still waiting for that moment to happen.

Toyota look set to keep one at most of their current drivers for 2005, so Da Matta, who out-pointed team-mate Olivier Panis last year, will need to make that real.

Like many drivers before him, Da Matta arrived in F1 fresh from dominating the US-based Champ Car series.

And like many before him, it was far from certain how he would shape up.

He could have turned out like Jacques Villeneuve or Juan Pablo Montoya, who moved to Europe and immediately proved good enough to be counted among the best in the world.

Or he could have been like Michael Andretti and Alex Zanardi - extremely talented drivers who, for one reason or another, could not cope with the tougher demands of F1.

For now, Da Matta is somewhere in the middle ground.

He has not yet done enough to fit into the Montoya category, but he has already done better than Zanardi and Andretti.

There were flashes of promise in the first four races, and then sixth place in Spain, where he was every bit a match for Panis, suggested Da Matta was already on the right track.

And he followed that up with other promising performances.

Before arriving in F1, Da Matta had an understated career in which, almost unnoticed, he crept up on a series of very impressive results, including winning the Champ Car title in 2002.

Toyota chose Da Matta at least partly because they wanted to increase their profile in South America.

But Da Matta is intelligent, technical, consistent and smooth, and has proved that he deserved the place on talent alone.

He seems to have what it takes to be a success in F1 - now he has to deliver on that potential.