Marc
Gené

Marc Gené was born in Sabadell on 29 March 1974 and started out in karting. In 1988 he won the Catalan championship and the Spanish championship in the National Class. In 1990 he took the Senior Class title in the Spanish Kart Championship, the youngest driver to do so. He moved up to Formula Ford in 1992 and finished runner-up in the European Championship in 1993. In 1994 he was named Rookie of the Year in British Formula 3. He won the FISA Superformula title in 1996, contested six rounds of Formula 3000 without scoring in 1997, and in 1998 won the Open Fortuna by Nissan championship with six victories.

Gené got a race seat at Minardi in 1999. At the European Grand Prix he finished sixth, which gave him his first championship point and Minardi's first since 1995. He ended that season 18th in the standings. He stayed with the team in 2000 but did not score. His best results were eighth places in Australia and Austria, and he was 19th in the championship.

He then became a test driver for Williams and stepped in as a replacement on three occasions. At the 2003 Italian Grand Prix he drove in place of Ralf Schumacher, finishing fifth for four points and 17th in the standings. In 2004 he started the French and British Grands Prix. Antônio Pizzonia then took over the seat, and Gené never raced in Formula One again. He finished with 36 starts. From the end of 2004 until the end of 2010 he was a test driver for Ferrari.

In sports cars he drove for Peugeot as a works driver from 2007. He won the 2008 1000 km of Spa, and in 2009 he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans with David Brabham and Alex Wurz. Gené drove the final stint and brought the Peugeot 908 home after 382 laps. From 2010 he commentated on Formula One for Antena 3 on Spanish television, and from 2013 he worked as an expert analyst for Sky Sport F1 in Italy.

Source: Wikipedia, “Marc Gené”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.