Townsend Bell

Townsend Bell (2015)

Townsend Bell (born April 19, 1975 in San Francisco , California ) is an American racing driver . He became the Indy Lights master in 2001 . In 2001 and 2002 he started a total of eleven races in the CART series. From 2004 to 2016 he competed in individual races in the IndyCar Series . In 2012 and 2013 he also drove in the American Le Mans Series (ALMS). He has been competing in the United SportsCar Championship (USCC) since 2014 .

Career

Bell began his motorsport career in 1997 in the US Barber Formula Dodge West , in which he finished fourth overall. He then went to the Barber Dodge Pro Series for two years and was third in the overall standings in 1999 in his second season. Then in 2000 Bell moved to Indy Lights for Dorricott Racing . He won two races and finished second in four races. With 146 to 155 he was defeated by Scott Dixon in the title duel and became runner-up. Internally, he prevailed against his teammates Casey Mears and Jason Bright . In 2001, Bell stayed with Dorricott Racing. He won six of twelve races, started from pole position eight times and was on the podium a total of eight times. With 193 to 149 he won the championship before Dan Wheldon . His team-mate Damien Faulkner finished third this season. In 2001, Bell also had the opportunity to take part in two races in the CART series for Patrick Racing . He reached 30th place in the drivers' championship. In 2002 Bell initially stayed with Patrick Racing. At the race in Portland he achieved his best result with a fourth place. After nine races he lost his cockpit to Oriol Servià . In the championship he finished twentieth.

In 2003 Bell moved to Europe in Formula 3000 . As a team colleague of Björn Werdenheim , he was given a cockpit with the top team Arden International . In contrast to his team-mate, who won the championship title and was on the podium nine times, he failed to keep up with Werdenheim, and he achieved a podium finish. At the end of the season he finished ninth overall. Bell also gained its first experience in a Formula 1 car at the beginning of September and completed a test day for British American Racing . In November there was another Formula 1 test for Bell. Together with Christian Klien , he tested for Jaguar , which gave both pilots the chance to recommend themselves for a racing cockpit. After Jaguar signed Klien for the racing cockpit, Bell raised his hopes for the test driver position. But Jaguar decided against Bell and instead signed his former team-mate Björn Werdenheim.

Bell in training for the Indianapolis 500 2009

After Bell had not received a cockpit in the Formula 3000 either, he returned to the United States and switched to the IndyCar Series . At Panther Racing , he entered the seventh race of the season and replaced Mark Taylor , who had only reached one finish. Bell achieved his best result of the season with a fifth place in the second race in Lebanon . In ten races, Bell finished five times in the top 10. In the overall standings he was 21. In the next two years, he only entered one race. In 2005 he jumped in for the injured Tomáš Enge at Panther Racing, in 2006 he received an additional vehicle from Vision Racing , which was used in the Indianapolis 500 .

After not taking part in a race in 2007, he shared a cockpit with racing driver Milka Duno at Dreyer & Reinbold Racing in 2008 . He took part in eight races and was three times in the top 10. In 2009 he did not contest any race other than the Indianapolis 500. At the race he finished fourth for KV Racing Technology and 32nd in the overall standings. In 2010 Bell joined Sam Schmidt Motorsports for the Indianapolis 500, which he finished in 16th place, and finished 38th overall at the end of the season. In 2011 Bell again took part in the Indianapolis 500 for Sam Schmidt Motorsports. After he had qualified in fourth place and was in the race among the top ten pilots, he retired after a collision with Ryan Briscoe and was 26. As the season went on, Bell returned to Dreyer & Reinbold Racing as a substitute for the injured Justin Wilson and took part in the last two races. At the end of the season he finished 35th overall.

In 2012, Bell moved to Alex Job Racing in the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) and started in GT racing for the first time . After winning the GTC classification on his debut, he contested the rest of the season in the GT class. Together with his teammate Bill Sweedler , Bell achieved 17th place overall. He also returned to the IndyCar Series for the Indianapolis 500 . For the third time in a row he started for Sam Schmidt Motorsports. He finished ninth. In 2013 Bell stayed with Alex Job Racing in the ALMS and contested the first nine of ten races in the GT class. In this he reached the 16th place. He also took part in the Indianapolis 500 for Panther Racing that year .

In 2014 Bell received a cockpit in the newly founded United SportsCar Championship (USCC), which emerged from the ALMS. He started the season for Level 5 Motorsports , which after a class win at the Daytona 24 Hours with Bell, Alessandro Pier Guidi , Jeff Segal , Bill Sweedler and Scott Tucker gave the car to AIM Autosport . Bell finished the season in fourth place in the GTD classification. In the North American Endurance Cup belonging to the series , he won the GTD classification together with Sweedler. At the Indianapolis 500 Bell started for KV Racing Technology and was eliminated. In 2015 , Bell moved to Scuderia Corsa within the USCC . Together with his team-mate Sweedler, he won the GT Daytona classification. He also took part in the Le Mans 24-hour race for the first time . In addition, he competed for Dreyer and Reinbold - Kingdom Racing for the Indianapolis 500 and was 14th in 2016 Bell contested the Indianapolis 500 for Andretti Autosport .

statistics

Career stations

1997: US Barber Formula Dodge West (4th place) 1998: Barber Dodge Pro series 1999: Barber Dodge Pro Series (3rd place) 2000: Indy Lights (2nd place) 2001: Indy Light (Master) 2001 : CART (30th place) 2002 : CART (20th place) 2003 : Formula 3000 (9th place)

2004 : IndyCar Series (21st place) 2005 : IndyCar Series (31st place) 2006 : IndyCar Series (34th place) 2008 : IndyCar Series (26th place) 2009 : IndyCar Series (32nd place) 2010 : IndyCar Series (38th place) 2011 : IndyCar Series (35th place) 2012: ALMS , GT (17th place)

2012 : IndyCar Series (30th place) 2013: ALMS, GT (16th place) 2013 : IndyCar Series (35th place) 2014 : USCC , GTD (4th place) 2014 : IndyCar Series (32nd place) 2015 : USCC, GTD (champion) 2015 : IndyCar Series (35th place) 2016 : IndyCar Series (28th place)

Individual results in the IndyCar Series

year	team	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th	16	17th	18th	19th	Points	rank
2004	Panther Racing	HMS	PHX	MOT	INDY	TXS	RIR	KAN	NSH	Mil	MIS	KTY	PPI	NZR	CHI	HAIRDRYER	TX2				193	21st
								17th	5	6th	8th	21st	12	18th	22nd	9	9
2005	Panther Racing	HMS	PHX	STP	MOT	INDY	TXS	RIR	KAN	NSH	Mil	MIS	KTY	PPI	SNM	CHI	WGL	HAIRDRYER			15th	31.
												15th
2006	Vision racing	HMS	STP	MOT	INDY	WGL	TXS	RIR	KAN	NSH	Mil	MIS	KTY	SNM	CHI						12	34.
					22nd
2008	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	HMS	STP	MOT	LBH	KAN	INDY	Mil	TXS	IOW	RIR	WGL	NSH	MDO	EDM	KTY	SNM	DET	CHI	SRF	117	26th
			21st	10			10	11			8th				25th		19th			23
2009	KV Racing Technology	STP	LBH	KAN	INDY	Mil	TXS	IOW	RIR	WGL	GOAL	EDM	KTY	MDO	SNM	CHI	MOT	HMS			32	32.
					4th
2010	Sam Schmidt Motorsports	SAO	STP	ALA	LBH	KAN	INDY	TXS	IOW	WGL	GOAL	EDM	MDO	SNM	CHI	KTY	MOT	HMS			18th	38.
							16 10
2011	Sam Schmidt Motorsports	STP	ALA	LBH	SAO	INDY	TXS		Mil	IOW	GOAL	EDM	MDO	NHA	SNM	BAL	MOT	KTY	LSV		40	35.
						26 4
	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing																	11	C.
2012	Schmidt-Hamilton Motorsports	STP	ALA	LBH	SAO	INDY	DET	TXS	Mil	IOW	GOAL	EDM	MDO	SNM	BAL	HAIRDRYER					26th	30th
						9 20
2013	Panther Racing	STP	ALA	LBH	SAO	INDY	DET		TXS	Mil	IOW	POC	GOAL		MDO	SNM	BAL	HOU		HAIRDRYER	10	35.
						27 ° 22
2014	KV Racing Technology	STP	LBH	ALA	IMS	INDY	DET		TXS	HOU		POC	IOW	GOAL		MDO	Mil	SNM	HAIRDRYER		22nd	32.
						25 22
2015	Dreyer and Reinbold - Kingdom Racing	STP	NOL	LBH	ALA	IMS	INDY	DET		TXS	GOAL	HAIRDRYER	Mil	IOW	MDO	POC	SNM				32	35.
							14th
2016	Andretti Autosport	STP	PHO	LBH	ALA	IMS	INDY	DET		ROA	IOW	GOAL	MDO	POC	TXS	WGL	SNM				55	28.
							21 ° 4

annotation

1. ↑ Took place on the same day as the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.
2. ↑ Took place on the same day as the Indy Japan 300.
3. ↑ No points were awarded.

( Legend )

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
2015	Scuderia Corsa	Ferrari 458 Italia GT2	Bill Sweedler	Jeff Segal	Rank 24
2016	Scuderia Corsa	Ferrari 458 Italia GT2	Bill Sweedler	Jeff Segal	Rank 26 and class win
2017	Scuderia Corsa	Ferrari 488 GTE	Bill Sweedler	Cooper MacNeil	Rank 29

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
2012	Alex Job Racing	Porsche 997 GT3 Cup	Bill Sweedler	Dion von Moltke		Rank 31 and class win
2013	Team West AJR Boardwalk Ferrari	Ferrari 458 Italia GT2	Bill Sweedler	Leh Keen		failure	malfunction
2014	AIM Autosport	Ferrari 458 Italia GT3	Bill Sweedler	Jeff Segal	Maurizio Mediani	Rank 24
2015	Scuderia Corsa	Ferrari 458 Italia Grand-Am	Bill Sweedler	Anthony Lazzaro		Rank 18
2016	O'Gara Motorsport	Lamborghini Huracán GT3	Bill Sweedler	Richard Antinucci		failure	accident
2017	Alex Job Racing	Audi R8 LMS GT3	Bill Sweedler	Frank Montecalvo		Rank 31st
2018	Scuderia Corsa	Ferrari 488 GT3	Bill Sweedler	Frank Montecalvo		failure	accident
2019	AIM Vasser Sullivan	Lexus RCF GT3	Aaron Telitz	Frank Montecalvo		Rank 27

Web links

Commons : Townsend Bell  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Career statistics of Townsend Bell (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "BAR-Honda covered more than 5,000 kilometers" (Motorsport-Total.com on September 4, 2003)
2. ↑ "The battle for the Jaguar cockpit in full swing" (Motorsport-Total.com on November 25, 2003)
3. ↑ "Does Jaguar Townsend oblige Bell as a test driver?" (Motorsport-Total.com on January 9, 2004)
4. ↑ "Indy 500: Townsend Bell for Sam Schmidt and Ganassi" (Motorsport-Total.com on January 13, 2010)
5. ↑ "Indy 500: Howard drives with Sam Schmidt" (Motorsport-Total.com on February 24, 2011)
6. ↑ “Townsend Bell becomes latest stand in for Justin Wilson at Dreyer & Reinbold” (autosport.com on September 23, 2011)
7. ^ “Townsend Bell back with Sam Schmidt Motorsports for Indianapolis 500” (autosport.com on May 4, 2012)