Nicolas Minassian

Nicolas Minassian 2012 in Fuji

Nicolas Minassian in a Peugeot 908 at the 2008 Le Mans 24-hour race

Nicolas Minassian (born February 28, 1973 in Marseille ) is a French racing driver .

Career

After Minassian started his motorsport career in karting in 1990 , he finished fifth in the French Renault Clio Cup in 1992 . A year later he was runner-up in the French Formula Renault championship . He then switched to the French Formula 3 championship in 1994 . After finishing sixth in the first season, he won the runner-up title in this series in 1995. Minassian then left France and drove in the British Formula 3 championship for two years . Starting for Promatecme in 1997, after finishing fourth in the overall standings a year earlier, he also won the runner-up title in this racing series.

In 1998 Minassian switched to Formula 3000 and started for West Competition . The Frenchman could not keep up with his teammate Nick Heidfeld , who won the runner-up title, in his debut season and finished 13th in the overall standings. In 1999 Minassian contested his second season in Formula 3000 as a driver for Kid Jensen Racing. After four pointless races, he celebrated his first Formula 3000 victory at Silverstone . With two further podium finishes, he finished sixth overall at the end of the season. In his third season, Minassian moved to the top team Super Nova in 2000 . He won the races in Imola , Magny-Cours and Zeltweg . Minassian, who fought for the championship title with Bruno Junqueira , finally had to admit defeat and was again second in a championship.

In 2001 Minassian moved to America in the CART series . At Chip Ganassi Racing he became a teammate of his former Formula 3000 rival Junqueira. In the new series, however, he couldn't keep up with Junqueira and had to hand over his cockpit to Memo Gidley after just six races .

In 2002 Minassian returned to Europe. Although he started a race in the World Series by Nissan , his main focus was no longer on formula racing . He finished sixth in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and also won the championship title of the ASCAR , a British touring car racing series. In 2003 , Minassian returned to Formula 3000 again. However, his engagement ended after one race, as he was fired from his team - Brand Motorsport . Minassian started again in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and this time finished ninth.

Since 2004, Minassian has only been active in endurance races. Since then he has competed with various Le Mans prototypes in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and in the Le Mans Endurance Series . He also took part in some races in the American Le Mans Series . Minassian had his most successful season in 2008 when he was runner-up in the Le Mans Series and second in the Le Mans 24-hour race. In 2009, he set the fastest race lap in the Le Mans 24-hour race.

statistics

Career stations

• 1990-1991: karting
• 1992: French Renault Clip Cup (5th place)
• 1993: French Formula Renault (2nd place)
• 1994: French Formula 3 Championship (6th place)
• 1995: French Formula 3 Championship (2nd place)
• 1996: British Formula 3 Championship (4th place)
• 1997: British Formula 3 Championship (2nd place)
• 1998 : Formula 3000 (13th place)
• 1999 : Formula 3000 (6th place)
• 2000 : Formula 3000 (2nd place)
• 2001 : CART series (27th place)
• 2002: ASCAR (master); 24 hours of Le Mans , LMP 900 (6th place)
• 2003 : Formula 3000 (25th place); 24-hour race of Le Mans, LMP 900 (9th place)
• 2004: Le Mans Endurance Series (4th place); Le Mans 24 hour race, LMP 1
• 2005: Le Mans Endurance Series (5th place); Le Mans 24-hour race, LMP 1 (7th place)
• 2006 : Le Mans Series (6th place); 24 Hours of Le Mans, LMP 1 (4th place)
• 2007 : Le Mans Series (3rd place); Le Mans 24 hour race, LMP 1
• 2008 : Le Mans Series (2nd place); 24 Hours of Le Mans, LMP 1 (2nd place)
• 2009: Le Mans Series; 24 Hours of Le Mans, LMP 1 (6th place)

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1994	Roland Bassaler	Alpa LM	Patrick Bourdais	Olivier Couvreur	failure	suspension
2000	Mopar Team ORECA	Reynard 2KQ-LM	Yannick Dalmas	Jean-Philippe Belloc	failure	no oil pressure
2002	PlayStation Team ORECA	Dallara SP1	Stéphane Sarrazin	Franck Montagny	Rank 6
2003	Pescarolo sport	Courage C60	Eric Helary	Soheil Ayari	Rank 9
2004	Pescarolo sport	Courage C60	Sébastien Bourdais	Emmanuel Collard	failure
2005	Creation Autosportif	DBA 03S	Jamie Campbell-Walter	Andy Wallace	Rank 14
2006	Pescarolo sport	Pescarolo C60	Érik Comas	Emmanuel Collard	Rank 5
2007	Team Peugeot Total	Peugeot 908 HDi FAP	Jacques Villeneuve	Marc Gené	failure
2008	Team Peugeot Total	Peugeot 908 HDi FAP	Jacques Villeneuve	Marc Gené	Rank 2
2009	Team Peugeot Total	Peugeot 908 HDi FAP	Pedro Lamy	Christian Klien	Rank 6
2010	Team Peugeot Total	Peugeot 908 HDi FAP	Stéphane Sarrazin	Franck Montagny	failure	Engine failure
2011	Team Peugeot Total	Peugeot 908	Stéphane Sarrazin	Franck Montagny	Rank 3
2012	Pescarolo team	Dome S102.5	Sébastien Bourdais	Seiji Ara	not classified
2013	PeCom Racing	Oreca 03	Luís Pérez Companc	Pierre Kaffer	Rank 11
2014	SMP Racing	Oreca 03	Kirill Ladygin	Maurizio Mediani	failure	Engine failure
2015	SMP Racing	BR Engineering BR1	David Markozov	Maurizio Mediani	Rank 14
2016	SMP Racing	BR Engineering BR1	David Markozov	Maurizio Mediani	Rank 11

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
2008	Equipe Peugeot Total	Peugeot 908 HDi FAP	Pedro Lamy	Stéphane Sarrazin	Rank 11
2009	Team Peugeot Total	Peugeot 908 HDi FAP	Pedro Lamy	Christian Klien	failure	mechanics
2010	Team Peugeot Total	Peugeot 908 HDi FAP	Pedro Lamy	Sébastien Bourdais	Rank 2
2016	DragonSpeed	Oreca 05	Henrik Hedman	Nicolas Lapierre	Rank 4

Web links

Commons : Nicolas Minassian  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website of Nicolas Minassian

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Memo Gidley to replace Minassian at Portland" (Crash.net June 20, 2001)
2. ↑ "Minassian statement on Brand Motorsport dispute" ( Memento of the original from June 13, 2006 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. (Motorsport.com on April 23, 2003)