Thomas Laurent

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The Rebellion R13 of Gustavo Menezes , Mathias Beche and Thomas Laurent at the 6-hour race at Fuji 2018

Thomas Laurent (born April 5, 1998 in La Roche-sur-Yon ) is a French racing driver .

Racing career

Thomas Laurent achieved great success in sports car racing at a very young age . At the age of 17, he made the direct switch from karting to the LMP2 class of the Asian Le Mans Series . He joined the team of Jackie Chan DC Racing , the racing team of the Chinese racing driver David Cheng and the actor Jackie Chan and drove their Ligier JS P3 during the last three races of the 2015/2016 season . Together with Cheng and Ho-Pin Tung , he won the LMP2 class at the 2015 Sepang 3 Hours , the 2016 Buriram 3 Hours and the 2016 Sepang 3 Hours .

In 2016 he started as a partner of Alexandre Cougnaud and Yann Ehrlacher in the European Le Mans Series and won the GT3 Le Mans Cup race with Cougnaud as part of the 2016 Le Mans 24 Hours . In January 2017 he won the Asian Le Mans race in Buri Ram . The young Frenchman became internationally known for his first appearance in the 24-hour race of Le Mans . In a turbulent race that was characterized by various problems with the LMP1 vehicles, he was in the lead for a long time in the LMP2- Oreca 07 and impressed with consistently fast lap times. He finished the race with team-mates Oliver Jarvis and Ho-Pin Tung in second place in the overall standings, beaten only by Timo Bernhard , Brendon Hartley and Earl Bamber in the Porsche 919 Hybrid .

The strong driving performance in 2017 led to a driver contract with Rebellion Racing in 2018 . Again he managed a podium finish at Le Mans . With no chance against the superior Toyota TS050 Hybrid , Gustavo Menezes and Mathias Beche finished third in the overall standings in the Rebellion R13 . After the two Toyotas were disqualified at the 6-hour race at Silverstone , the trio Menezes / Beche / Laurent were declared the winners there. Laurent's first overall victory in the FIA World Endurance Championship made him the youngest winner of this racing series at the age of just under 20.

In the first race of the 2019/20 FIA World Endurance Championship , the 6-hour race of Spa-Francorchamps , which was shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic , he had a serious accident in the Alpine A470 , but was uninjured. He also had to vacate his test and reserve driver position at Toyota Motorsport for Nyck de Vries in the summer of 2020 .

statistics

Le Mans results

year team vehicle Teammate Teammate placement Failure reason
2017 China People's RepublicPeople's Republic of China Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca 07 United KingdomUnited Kingdom Oliver Jarvis China People's RepublicPeople's Republic of China Ho-Pin Tung Rank 2 and class win
2018 SwitzerlandSwitzerland Rebellion Racing Rebellion R13 United StatesUnited States Gustavo Menezes SwitzerlandSwitzerland Mathias Beche Rank 3
2019 SwitzerlandSwitzerland Rebellion Racing Rebellion R13 United StatesUnited States Gustavo Menezes FranceFrance Nathanaël Berthon Rank 5

Web links

Commons : Thomas Laurent  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Buriram 3-hour race 2016
  2. ↑ Sepang 3-hour race 2016
  3. ↑ Buriram 4-hour race
  4. ↑ Toyota disqualified at Silverstone
personal data
SURNAME Laurent, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French racing driver
DATE OF BIRTH April 5, 1998
PLACE OF BIRTH La Roche-sur-Yon