Nicolas Lapierre

Nicolas Lapierre 2009

Lapierre at the 2008 Silverstone 1000km race

Lapierre follows a Peugeot 908 HDi FAP at Le Mans 2009

Nicolas Lapierre (born April 2, 1984 in Thonon-les-Bains ) is a French racing driver .

Career

Kart and formula series

His career began in karting in 1993 . In 1999, Lapierre joined the French Formula Renault . In 2001 and 2002 he drove in the Formula Renault 2000 Eurocup, in 2002 in the French Formula 3. In 2003, Lapierre switched to Signature Plus in the newly founded Formula 3 Euro Series and finished eleventh in the overall standings; Lapierre also won the prestigious Formula 3 Grand Prix in Macau . In 2004 Lapierre stayed with Signature Plus in the Formula 3 Euro Series. In his second season, Lapierre won three races and was third in the overall standings behind Jamie Green and Alexandre Prémat . He also took part in two races in the British Formula 3 Championship .

In 2005 the Frenchman switched to the newly founded GP2 series at Arden International . Lapierre's best finish was third in his home race at Magny-Cours . Lapierre finished eleventh overall with 21 points. His teammate Heikki Kovalainen won the runner-up title in the series. Then Lapierre was active in the A1GP season 2005/2006 for the French A1 team . Together with Alexandre Prémat he won the championship title of the series. In 2006 Lapierre stayed with Arden International and played his second season in the GP2 series. His teammate was the German Michael Ammermüller . After the season got off to a promising start for Lapierre, he was injured in an accident in Monaco and had to take a break for two race weekends. At the end of the season, Lapierre finished ninth in the overall standings. After the season he started again in the 2006/2007 A1GP season . The title defense was not successful, but the points were enough for fourth place overall. In 2007 Lapierre played his third and so far last season in the GP2 series. Lapierre moved to DAMS , with whom he had already worked in the A1 Grand Prix, and became a teammate of Kazuki Nakajima . Lapierre won two races and finished the season twelfth overall. Lapierre also took part in the Le Mans 24-hour race .

Sports car

In the 2007/2008 A1GP season , Lapierre contested two races for the French A1 team. His main engagement was in 2008 for ORECA at the Le Mans Series . Together with Olivier Panis , he now drove the Courage-ORECA LC70 prototype , but only finished the 1000 km race at Spa-Francorchamps on the podium and in the points. Lapierre will remain with ORECA for the 2009 season, who completely aerodynamically modified the sports prototype during the winter break. However, the completion of the vehicle now called ORECA 01 was delayed until the 1000 km race in Spa. Lapierre and his team-mate Panis had to compete in the first championship run in Spain with the car from last year. With the new vehicle, the teams' results improved over the season. At the last championship run at Silverstone , Lapierre was able to achieve his first overall victory. In the 24-hour race of Le Mans, which is not part of the championship, Panis and Lapierre were reinforced by Soheil Ayari and were waved off in fifth place overall. In September Lapierre drove with Panis and Romain Dumas for ORECA at the Petit Le Mans . The originally scheduled 1000-mile run had to be stopped after four hours due to heavy rain and Lapierre was classified in fifth place and the best-placed car with a petrol engine. At the end of the year, he was also registered in the two 500 km races of the Asian Le Mans Series . With his new teammate Loïc Duval , he was able to finish both races on the podium, but the team missed the overall victory in the championship.

statistics

Career stations

• 1993-1998: Karting
• 1999: French Formula Renault
• 2000: Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup (20th place)
• 2001: French Formula Renault (8th place)
• 2002: Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup (3rd place)
• 2003: Formula 3 Euro Series (11th place)
• 2004 : Formula 3 Euro Series (3rd place)
• 2005 : GP2 series (11th place), A1GP season 2005/2006 (champions)
• 2006 : GP2 series (9th place), A1GP season 2006/2007 (4th place)
• 2007 : GP2 series (12th place), A1GP season 2007/2008 (4th place)
• 2008: Le Mans Series

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
2007	Team ORECA	Saleen S7R	Stéphane Ortelli	Soheil Ayari	Rank 16
2009	Team ORECA Matmut AIM	ORECA 01	Olivier Panis	Soheil Ayari	Rank 5
2010	Team ORECA Matmut	Peugeot 908 HDi FAP	Olivier Panis	Loïc Duval	failure	Engine failure
2011	Team ORECA Matmut	Peugeot 908 HDi FAP	Olivier Panis	Loïc Duval	Rank 5
2012	Toyota Racing	Toyota TS030	Alexander Wurz	Kazuki Nakajima	failure	Engine failure
2013	Toyota Racing	Toyota TS030	Alexander Wurz	Kazuki Nakajima	Rank 4
2014	Toyota Racing	Toyota TS040 Hybrid	Anthony Davidson	Sébastien Buemi	Rank 3
2015	KCMG	Oreca 05	Matthew Howson	Richard Bradley	9th place and class win
2016	Signatech Alpine	Alpine A460	Gustavo Menezes	Stéphane Richelmi	5th place and class win
2017	Toyota Gazoo Racing	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	José María López	Yūji Kunimoto	failure	accident
2018	Signatech Alpine Matmut	Alpine A470	André Negrao	Pierre Thiriet	5th place and class win
2019	Signatech Alpine Matmut	Alpine A470	André Negrao	Pierre Thiriet	Rank 6 and class win

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
2011	Team ORECA Matmut	Peugeot 908 HDi FAP	Olivier Panis	Loïc Duval	Overall victory
2016	DragonSpeed	Oreca 05	Henrik Hedman	Nicolas Minassian	Rank 4
2018	Tequila Patron ESM	OnRoak Nissan DPi	Johannes van Overbeek	Luís Felipe Derani	Overall victory

Web links

Commons : Nicolas Lapierre  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website of Nicolas Lapierre