Johnny O'Connell

Johnny O'Connell 2014

Johnny O'Connell (born July 24, 1962 in Poughkeepsie ) is an American racing driver .

Racing career

Johnny O'Connell is one of the most successful American racing drivers in General Motors' long motorsport history . For most of his GT and sports car career , he was tied to the US automobile company as a works driver .

He started his career in 1986 in Formula Vau and switched to Formula Atlantic in 1987 . The single posto career , however, remained a marginal phenomenon. Although he finished ninth overall in the Indy Racing League in 1996 , he was primarily a GT and sports car driver. O'Connell has celebrated more than 50 class wins in his career; a track record that hardly any other driver can boast. Among other things, he won the GTS class four times at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and seven times at the 12 Hours of Sebring , where he also won the overall standings in 1994 together with John Morton and Steve Millen in a Nissan 300ZX . In 2001 he won the Daytona 24-hour race .

After his time at Panoz in the late 1990s, he began working for General Motors in 2001. For Corvette Racing he won the final classification of the GT1 class of the American Le Mans Series in 2003 , 2004 and 2008 . Since 2012, Johnny O'Connell, who has also had some assignments in NASCAR , has dominated the Pirelli World Challenge . Four times in a row he won the overall standings in the GT class of this racing series for Cadillac Racing .

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1994	Clayton Cunningham Racing	Nissan 300ZX	Steve Millen	John Morton	5th place and class win
1998	Panoz Motorsports Inc.	Panoz Esperante GTR-1	Christophe Tinseau	Eric Bernard	failure	Gearbox damage
1999	Panoz Motor Sports	Panoz LMP-1 Roadster-S	Jan Magnussen	Max Angelelli	Rank 11
2000	Panoz Motorsports	Panoz LMP-1 Roadster S.	Pierre-Henri Raphanel	Hiroki Kato	Rank 5
2001	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	Scott Pruett	Ron Fellows	Rank 8 and class win
2002	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	Oliver Gavin	Ron Fellows	11th place and class win
2003	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	Franck Fréon	Ron Fellows	Rank 12
2004	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	Massimiliano Papis	Ron Fellows	Rank 8
2005	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Massimiliano Papis	Ron Fellows	Rank 6
2006	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Massimiliano Papis	Ron Fellows	Rank 12
2007	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Jan Magnussen	Ron Fellows	Rank 6
2008	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Jan Magnussen	Ron Fellows	Rank 14
2009	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Jan Magnussen	Antonio García	15th place and class win
2010	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6 ZR1	Jan Magnussen	Antonio García	failure	Engine failure
2016	Team AAI	Chevrolet Corvette C7.R	Mark Patterson	Oliver Bryant	Rank 39

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1991	Cunningham Racing	Nissan 300ZX	Jeremy Dale	Steve Millen		Rank 11
1992	Cunningham Racing	Nissan 300ZX	John Morton	Steve Millen		failure	Engine failure
1993	Cunningham Racing	Nissan 300ZX	John Morton	Steve Millen		4th place and class win
1994	Cunningham Racing	Nissan 300ZX	John Morton	Steve Millen		Overall victory
1995	Cunningham Racing	Nissan 300ZX	John Morton	Steve Millen		5th place and class win
1996	Screaming Eagles Racing	Riley & Scott Mk III	Craig Nelson	Dan Clark		failure	Engine failure
1997	Support Net Racing	Hawk C-8	Henry Camferdam	Scott Schubot	Roger Mandeville	failure	mechanics
1998	Transatlantic Racing Services	Riley & Scott Mk III	Henry Camferdam	Scott Schubot		failure	Electrics
1999	Panoz Racing	Panoz Esperante GTR-1	John Nielsen	Jan Magnussen		failure	accident
2000	Panoz Motor Sports	Panoz LMP-1 Roadster S.	Hiroki Kato			failure	accelerator
2001	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	Ron Fellows	Chris Kneifel		Rank 11
2002	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	Ron Fellows	Oliver Gavin		9th place and class win
2003	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	Ron Fellows	Franck Fréon		Rank 8 and class win
2004	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	Ron Fellows	Massimiliano Papis		4th place and class win
2005	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Ron Fellows	Massimiliano Papis		Rank 5
2006	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Ron Fellows	Massimiliano Papis		Rank 7
2007	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Ron Fellows	Jan Magnussen		Rank 8
2008	Chevrolet Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Ron Fellows	Jan Magnussen		Rank 8 and class win
2009	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Antonio García	Jan Magnussen		5th place and class win
2010	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Antonio García	Jan Magnussen		Rank 15

Web links

Commons : Johnny O'Connell  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Johnny O'Connell at the Driver Database
• Johnny O'Connell at Racing Sports Cars

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Johnny O'Connell in NASCAR