Eric Helary

Éric Hélary 2014

Éric Hélary (born August 10, 1966 in Paris ) is a French racing driver . In 1993 he was the overall winner of the Le Mans 24-hour race .

Career

Éric Hélary began his career in karting and switched to the French Formula Ford Championship in 1985 . In 1987 he secured the championship title of this racing series and entered the French Formula 3 championship the following year . The young Frenchman also won the overall standings in this racing series. In 1990 he was victorious on a Reynard - Mugen .

Hélary joined the Peugeot works team in 1992 through the Peugeot Spyder Cup and made his debut at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. In 1993 it celebrated its greatest success in motorsport when he won the overall classification of this endurance race together with Geoff Brabham and Christophe Bouchut in a Peugeot 905 . Until 2006, Hélary competed regularly for various teams at Le Mans and finished three times on the podium in the top three. In 1995 he finished second in a Courage C34 with Bob Wollek and Mario Andretti and in 1997 in a McLaren F1 GTR, third in the overall standings. In 2006 he drove a Pescarolo C60 , in which the French rally world champion Sébastien Loeb was also sitting, to second place overall. In 2006 he returned to Peugeot and became a test driver for the Peugeot 908 HDi FAP in preparation for the French brand's return to Le Mans.

From 1994 Hélary also drove touring car races and was a works driver at Opel in the French touring car championship. After the reintroduction of the DTM in 2000, he also entered this racing series with Opel. In 2002 he returned to France and drove again in the French touring car championship.

In October 2011 he announced his final retirement as a driver, but returned to active racing in 2014. He drove in Le Mans in the FIA World Endurance Championship and competed in races in the European Le Mans Series .

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1993	Peugeot Talbot Sport	Peugeot 905 Evo 1C	Christophe Bouchut	Geoff Brabham	Overall victory
1994	Michel Hommell	Bugatti EB110SS	Jean-Christophe Boullion	Alain Cudini	failure	accident
1995	Courage Compétition	Courage C34	Bob Wollek	Mario Andretti	Rank 2 and class win
1996	Viper Team Oreca	Chrysler Viper GTS-R	Olivier Beretta	Philippe Gache	Rank 21
1997	BMW Team Schnitzer	McLaren F1 GTR	Peter Kox	Roberto Ravaglia	Rank 3
1998	Toyota Motorsport	Toyota GT-One	Martin Brundle	Emmanuel Collard	failure	accident
2002	Pescarolo sport	Courage C60	Stéphane Ortelli	Ukyo Katayama	failure	Engine failure
2003	Pescarolo sport	Courage C60	Nicolas Minassian	Soheil Ayari	Rank 9
2005	Pescarolo sport	Pescarolo C60 Hybrid	Sébastien Loeb	Soheil Ayari	failure	Engine failure
2006	Pescarolo sport	Pescarolo C60	Sébastien Loeb	Franck Montagny	Rank 2
2014	IMSA Performance Matmut	Porsche 997 GT3-RSR	Érik Maris	Jean-Marc Merlin	Rank 32

Web links

Commons : Éric Hélary  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Éric Hélary at Motorsport Magazine

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Éric Hélary resigned ( Memento of the original dated November 30, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.