Harold Primate

Harold Primat 2011 at Le Mans

Harold Primat (born June 12, 1975 in Neuilly-sur-Seine ) is a former Swiss racing driver of French descent.

Career in motorsport

Harold Primat was born in the posh Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine. However, he grew up in Switzerland. He started karting in elementary school . He received his training as a professional racing driver at the racing driver schools of Max Mygale and Winfield in France. The completion of this early career phase was a course at the Jim Russell Racing School in England.

He gained his first racing experience in 1999 in the United States . He contested races in the Formula Ford 2000 series . He finished his first championship in twelfth overall (overall winner was the Briton Dan Wheldon ). The following year he was 16th in the final ranking. Back in Europe, he started driving Formula 3 in 2001 . In the British Formula 3 championship was just as involved as in the Euro series . His best placement was the eleventh final place in the national class of the British championship in 2002 (overall winner Adam Carroll ).

In 2004 he switched to sports car racing, as he was able to celebrate two overall victories in international races by the end of his career in 2015 and was on the podium of the top three 12 times. In 2005 he made his debut in both Le Mans Series in Europe and North America . He made his debut in the 12 Hours of Sebring and the 24 Hours of Le Mans . In Sebring he dropped out prematurely on a Courage C65 reported by Kruse Motorspot after an engine failure. In Le Mans he drove a Dallara SP1 ; Here, too, the race ended after an engine failure before the checkered flag fell.

In 2006 he finished fifth overall in the final classification of the LMP1 class of the European Le Mans Series and competed for Henri Pescarolo's team in 2007 and 2008 . In 2009 he signed a works contract with Aston Martin Racing where he stayed until 2011. In addition to the bad experiences with the nearly drivable AMR-One , there was a success in 2010 to sixth place overall at Le Mans and in 2011 overall victory at belonging to the American Le Mans Series 6-hour race at Laguna Seca .

After a year at Rebellion Racing , Primat was involved in the Blancpain Endurance Series from 2013 . After the last race of the season in 2015 at the Nürburgring , he announced his retirement from professional racing.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
2005	Rollcentre Racing	Dallara SP1	Robert Verdoen-Roe	Michael Krumm	failure	Engine failure
2006	Swiss Spirit	Courage LC70	Marcel Fässler	Philipp Peter	failure	Gearbox damage
2007	Pescarolo sport	Pescarolo 01	Christophe Tinseau	Benoît Tréluyer	Rank 13
2008	Pescarolo sport	Pescarolo 01	Christophe Tinseau	Benoît Tréluyer	Rank 7
2009	Aston Martin Racing	Lola-Aston Martin LMP1	Stuart Hall	Peter Kox	failure	Engine failure
2010	Aston Martin Racing	Lola-Aston Martin LMP1	Stefan Mücke	Adrián Fernández	Rank 6
2011	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin AMR-One	Andrew Meyrick	Adrián Fernández	failure	Engine failure
2012	Rebellion Racing	Lola B12 / 60	Jeroen Bleekemolen	Andrea Belicchi	Rank 11

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
2005	Kruse Motorsport	Courage C65	Phil Bennett	Ian Mitchell	failure	Engine failure
2010	Aston Martin Racing	Lola B09 / 60	Adrián Fernández	Stefan Mücke	Rank 3
2012	Rebellion Racing	Lola B12 / 60	Andrea Belicchi	Jeroen Bleekemolen	Rank 34

Web links

Commons : Harold Primat  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website
• Harold Primat at the Driver Database
• Harold Primat at Racing Sports Cars

Individual evidence

1. ^ 1999 US Formula Ford 2000 Championship
2. ^ US Formula Ford 2000 Championship 2000
3. ↑ British Formula 3 Championship national class 2002
4. ↑ European Le Mans Series 2006
5. ↑ 6 Hours of Laguna Seca 2011
6. ↑ Harold Primat resigns