Pedro
Lamy

Pedro Lamy was born on 20 March 1972 in Aldeia Galega da Merceana, Portugal. After karting, he won the Portuguese Formula Ford Championship in 1989, in his first year and aged 17, and the Formula Opel Lotus title followed in 1991. In 1992 he took the German Formula Three championship ahead of Marco Werner, won the Marlboro Masters at Zandvoort and finished second in the Macau Grand Prix. In 1993 he finished runner-up in Formula 3000 with Crypton Engineering, one point behind Olivier Panis, and won a race at Pau.

That same year he replaced the injured Alessandro Zanardi at Lotus and contested the last four races of the Formula One season. He kept his place at Lotus for 1994 but drove only the first four races. He then had a heavy accident during a private test at Silverstone, which kept him out for more than a year. In the second half of 1995 he returned to Formula One with Minardi, taking over from Pierluigi Martini. At the Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide he scored the only point Minardi took that year, making him the first Portuguese driver to score in the Formula One World Championship, and he finished the season 18th in the standings. He stayed with Minardi in 1996, but the team had limited resources and the car was barely developed. His Formula One career ended after that season with 32 starts.

Lamy then moved to the FIA GT Championship and won the GT2 class in 1998 in an Oreca Chrysler Viper GTS-R. He raced at Le Mans and in the DTM for the works Mercedes team. With Zakspeed he won the 24 Hours Nürburgring in 2001 and 2002, and the V8Star Series in 2003. Driving for BMW he won the Nürburgring race again in 2004, 2005 and 2010. His fifth victory made him joint record winner of the race, level with Marcel Tiemann. In 2004 he won the GTS class of the Le Mans Endurance Series in a Larbre Ferrari 550 Maranello. In 2005 he was an Aston Martin works driver at Sebring and Le Mans. In 2007 he won the LMP1 title in the Le Mans Series in his first season with the Peugeot 908 HDi FAP. In 2012 he took part in the FIA World Endurance Championship in a Larbre Corvette C6.R in GTE-Am.

Source: Wikipedia, “Pedro Lamy”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.