Luciano Soveral

Antonio Luciano Soveral da Silva (born April 17, 1982 in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil) is a Brazilian driver currently running in the TM Master Cup Series. Like fellow Brazilian Carlos Donzelo, Soveral is a veteran of Brazilian stock car championships, but unlike Donzelo, did not win the TM Mexico championship.

His streak of bad luck and self-inflicted accidents while running near the front has drawn many comparisons to Lance Andrews, who took his first series win after 19 years of trying in his last ever start.

TM Junior Series
Soveral burst onto the scene in the TM Junior Series, driving for BlackDiamond Racing in place of Mathias Taube, who was tabbed to drive for Ocean International in the TM Master Cup Series. Soveral won pole on debut and nearly won the race, but he still finished an impressive second. He went on to win four races on many different kinds of tracks. The first time Soveral missed finishing in the top 10 was due to a mechanical failure at Darlington -- his 7th start.

2011
Soveral was a favorite to win Rookie of the Year in 2011, but he did not show the speed initially, in part due to Bolden Speedstable's learning curve. Later in the year, Soveral was in contention to win at Road America and Decatur, but missed out both times. He earned a lot of respect among his peers for his relatively clean driving and willingness to accept that he was not perfect on track.

He will move from the Bolden Speedstable, which is leaving the series, to Hodges-Walter Racing for the 2012 season.

2012
Soveral was tipped as a darkhorse for the championship, largely due to having the reigning champion and good friend Adrien Devereux as his teammate. Together they dominated preseason testing and swept the front row for the season opener in Las Vegas. However, Soveral suffered damage from an early caution after Michael Madrigal and Marcos Leonard made contact on track, and therefore did not finish well.

Soveral won his first TM Master Cup Series event at Road Atlanta, and is remembered for being one of the most emotional victory celebrations of recent memory. A teary-eyed Soveral could hardly conduct a post-race interview for several minutes, and the most he could say was that he was grateful for the opportunity and for everyone that believed in him.

Adrien Devereux later said he was happy to see Soveral take his first win because he felt Luciano was a deserving victor; "For sure he can be a winner regularly with this kind of pace, and he will be hungry for more". However, Soveral did not score a win for some time, despite several good drives. He managed to finish the 2012 Karjala Grand Prix with a car Dan Mullen described as "fit for CRL competition". Despite not getting much attention during the race, Soveral had shown an ability to make the most of a bad situation.

His second win came later than expected, at the 2012 Round of Quincy at the famed Grand Detour of Quincy. Soveral qualified 10th and quickly fell back through the field. At one point, Soveral was two laps down, but managed to make up both laps and put himself 4th with less than 10 laps to go. However, Soveral was involved in a controversial incident with Ryan Matthews after Soveral made a move inside of Matthews and hooked the back of Matthews's car, spinning him out of podium contention. On the final restart, Soveral battled Leonid Roderick for the win and passed Roderick in a thrilling finish to take his second TM Master Cup victory.

He maintained that the contact with Matthews was not intentional, but TM Master Cup series pundit Lance Andrews suspected Soveral meant to bump Matthews out of the way since Matthews had made his much slower Gasnier very wide. Dan Mullen notably disagreed with Andrews's assessment.