Neel Jani
Neel Jani (born December 8, 1983 in Rorschach ) is an Indian - Swiss racing driver . From 2003 to 2006 he was employed as a test driver in the top motorsport class, Formula 1 . He has been driving the 24 Hours of Le Mans every year since 2009 and achieved first place in 2016 after the Toyota that had been leading until a few minutes earlier failed due to a technical defect . Jani won together with Marc Lieb and Romain Dumas , the FIA World Endurance Championship 2016 .
Career
Jani's career started in 1998 with karting , which he did for two years before entering automobile racing in 2000. As part of the Swiss championship, he drove in the newly launched Lista A junior formula . With eight wins in twelve races, he became the superior champion. At the end of this season he competed in the French Formula Renault, where he gave another taste of his talent with four championship points. In 2001 he drove for the Italian team DG Racing in the Formula Renault 2000 in Italy and in the Eurocup, but was not happy, which led him to switch to the Swiss team Jenzer Motorsport . Here he was able to really develop in 2002 and reached the runner-up European championship. He then switched to the Formula Renault V6 with Jenzer in 2003 , where he again became Vice European Champion.
He stayed in the Formula Renault V6 until 2004, but switched to the DAMS team and, with a lot of bad luck, only finished fourth in the end. In Dubai, he also competed in a race for the FIA GT championship on a DAMS Lamborghini . In 2005 he started in the GP2 series for the Spanish Racing Engineering team and finished sixth in the overall standings with two wins.
Jani was a Formula 1 test driver at Sauber Petronas in 2003 and 2004 . Sponsored by Red Bull , the Swiss competed in a few test drives for his own Red Bull Racing team , or RBR for short , and was actually scheduled to be a test driver for 2006. After Robert Doornbos was signed as a test driver at RBR, Jani became a test and reserve driver for Red Bull's second Formula 1 team, Scuderia Toro Rosso .
Jani also represented Switzerland in the A1GP series in the 2005/06 season , achieved a win and many other podium finishes that brought the Swiss team to second place. Since the F1 test program for 2007 was drastically reduced and from now on there were no more third drivers at GP events, Jani switched to the American Champ Car series at Red Bull's request . After a season at the Champ Cars, which he finished under contract with the PKV-Racing -Rennstall , which was not exactly the favorite team at the time , with 3 podiums in 9th place overall, he switched back to the A1GP series and won in the 2007 / 08 with 4 wins and 11 podium finishes sensationally the world championship title for Switzerland. The following season was only marginally worse; In the end the team had to be content with the runner-up after 4 race wins. Jani also took part in the Le Mans 24-hour race in 2009 and ended up 12th in the LMP1 class.
From 2010 to 2012 Jani drove for the Rebellion Racing team in the endurance championship (until 2011 Le Mans Series , from 2012 FIA endurance world championship ).
On June 24, 2013, Porsche announced that it would be adding Neel Jani to its group of works drivers. There he was supported by Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas in the test work and from the 2014 season he was behind the wheel of one of the two LMP1 vehicles. Jani's multi-year contract with Porsche began on July 1st. In addition to the races with the Porsche 919, he drove for Rebellion Racing in the American Le Mans Series in 2013 and 2017.
Jani received a regular cockpit at Dragon Racing in the FIA Formula E Championship for the 2017/18 season . After the team proved not to be competitive at the season opener in Hong Kong , Jani left the team before the second event. At the end of the season he finished 25th overall.
statistics
GP2 series
season | Team name | Start number | run | Victories | Podium | Pole positions | Points | Championships |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2005 | Super nova | 14th | 21st | 2 | 2 | 1 | 48 | 0 |
2006 | Arden International | 4th | 4th | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Champ Car World Series
season | Team name | Start number | run | Victories | Podium | Pole positions | Points | World championships |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2007 | PKV Racing | 21st | 14th | 0 | 3 | 0 | 231 | 0 |
A1GP
season | Team name | Victories | Podium | Pole positions | Fastest laps | Points | World championships |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2005/06 | A1 Team Switzerland | 1 | 11 | 2 | 1 | 121 | 0 |
2006/07 | A1 Team Switzerland | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 25 (of 50) |
0 |
2007/08 | A1 Team Switzerland | 4th | 11 | 6th | 5 | 168 | 1 |
2008/09 | A1 Team Switzerland | 4th | 7th | 1 | 2 | 95 (99) | 0 |
Individual results in the FIA Formula E Championship
year | team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4th | 5 | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | Points | rank |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2017/18 | Dragon Racing | HKG | MAR | SAN | MEX | PUN | ROME | PAR | BER | ZUR | NYC | 0 | 25th | ||
18th | 18th |
( Legend )
Le Mans results
year | team | vehicle | Teammate | Teammate | placement | Failure reason |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2009 | Speedy Racing Team | Lola B08 / 60 | Andrea Belicchi | Nicolas Prost | Rank 14 | |
2010 | Rebellion Racing | Lola B10 / 60 | Marco Andretti | Nicolas Prost | failure | malfunction |
2011 | Rebellion Racing | Lola B10 / 60 | Jeroen Bleekemolen | Nicolas Prost | Rank 6 | |
2012 | Rebellion Racing | Lola B12 / 60 | Nick Heidfeld | Nicolas Prost | Rank 4 | |
2013 | Rebellion Racing | Lola B12 / 60 | Nick Heidfeld | Nicolas Prost | Rank 39 | |
2014 | Porsche team | Porsche 919 Hybrid | Romain Dumas | Marc Lieb | Rank 11 | |
2015 | Porsche team | Porsche 919 Hybrid | Romain Dumas | Marc Lieb | Rank 5 | |
2016 | Porsche team | Porsche 919 Hybrid | Romain Dumas | Marc Lieb | Overall victory | |
2017 | Porsche LMP team | Porsche 919 Hybrid | Nick Tandy | André Lotterer | failure | no oil pressure |
2018 | Rebellion Racing | Rebellion R13 | Bruno Senna | André Lotterer | Rank 4 | |
2019 | Rebellion Racing | Rebellion R13 | Bruno Senna | André Lotterer | Rank 4 |
Sebring results
year | team | vehicle | Teammate | Teammate | placement | Failure reason |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2011 | Rebellion Racing | Lola B10 / 60 | Jeroen Bleekemolen | Nicolas Prost | Rank 7 | |
2012 | Rebellion Racing | Lola B12 / 60 | Nick Heidfeld | Nicolas Prost | Rank 30 | |
2013 | Rebellion Racing | Lola B12 / 60 | Nick Heidfeld | Nicolas Prost | Rank 3 | |
2017 | Rebellion Racing | Oreca 07 | Nick Heidfeld | Sébastien Buemi | failure | alternator |
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jani: "The title must be the goal" motorsport-total.com
- ↑ Porsche confirms Jani as a works driver
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Jani, Neel |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss racing driver |
DATE OF BIRTH | December 8, 1983 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Rorschach , Switzerland |