Christophe Tinseau

Christophe Tinseau
Christophe Tinseau
	Tinseau in 2011
Nationality	French
Born	18 December 1969 (age 54)
Years
24 Hours of Le Mans career
Years	1998-2003, 2007-2009, 2011-2012, 2016
Teams	Panoz Motorsports; DAMS; Team Cadillac; Riley & Scott Racing; Pescarolo Sport; Thiriet by TDS Racing
Best finish	7th (2008)
Class wins	0

Christophe Tinseau (born 18 December 1969) is a French racing driver from Orléans.

Tinseau began racing professionally in French Formula Renault in 1991. In 1992 he moved to French Formula Three and in 1993 he placed 4th in that championship with 2 wins and finished 10th in the Macau Grand Prix. In 1994 he was the championship runner-up in French F3 and in 1995 he moved up to Formula 3000 where he finished 16th with 7 race starts. In 1996 he improved to 6th in F3000, winning the season-ending race at Hockenheim. In 1997 he raced in Indy Lights but only managed an 11th place championship finish, ending up on the podium once at Circuit Trois-Rivières. After the seeming decline in his open-wheel fortunes, Tinseau moved to sports cars for 1998 driving a Panoz Esperante GTR-1 for DAMS, making his 24 Hours of Le Mans debut. In 1999, still with DAMS he piloted a Judd powered Lola B98/10 for and won two races in the Sports Racing World Cup. From 2000 to 2002 he drove the historic Cadillac Northstar LMP at Le Mans, finishing 5th in class in 2001. He competed part-time in various series from 2003 to 2005, but returned to full-time racing in 2006 when he finished 6th in Porsche Carrera Cup France. He made 6 Le Mans Series starts and finished 6th at Le Mans for Pescarolo Sport in 2007. He continued with the team in 2008 and finished 7th at Le Mans and 8th in LMS points and continued with the team in 2009, finishing second in Le Mans Series. In 2010 he competed in the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series, finishing eighth with one win. In 2011 he returned to Le Mans Series with Pescarolo and finished fourth in the championship. In 2012 he competed in a handful of major endurance races, and since then has been largely retired.^[1] He has founded a racing school for ice racing.^[2]

Racing record

Complete International Formula 3000 results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap.)

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Pos.	Pts
1995	Mythos Racing	Reynard 95D	Zytek-Judd	SIL 9	CAT 6	PAU Ret	PER Ret	HOC 7	SPA 7	EST 10	MAG 14			16th	1
1996	Apomatox	Lola T96/50	Zytek-Judd	NÜR 8	PAU Ret	PER 3	HOC 4	SIL 6	SPA 6	MAG 9	EST 11	MUG 11	HOC 1	6th	18

Complete FIA GT Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Team	Car	Class	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Pos.	Pts
1998	DAMS	Panoz GTR-1	GT1	OSC	SIL	HOC	DIJ	HUN	SUZ 5	DON	A1R 7	HOM	LAG		24th	2
2001	Freisinger Motorsport	Porsche 911 GT3-RS	N-GT	MNZ	BRN	MAG	SIL	ZOL	HUN	SPA Ret	A1R	NÜR	JAR	EST	NC	0

24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
1998	Panoz Motorsports Inc. DAMS	Éric Bernard Johnny O'Connell	Panoz Esperante GTR-1	GT1	236	DNF	DNF
1999	Team DAMS	Franck Montagny David Terrien	Lola B98/10-Judd	LMP	77	DNF	DNF
2000	Team DAMS	Marc Goossens Kristian Kolby	Cadillac Northstar LMP	LMP900	4	DNF	DNF
2001	DAMS	Wayne Taylor Max Angelelli	Cadillac Northstar LMP01	LMP900	270	15th	5th
2002	Team Cadillac	Wayne Taylor Max Angelelli	Cadillac Northstar LMP02	LMP900	345	9th	8th
2003	Riley & Scott Racing	Jim Matthews Marc Goossens	Riley & Scott Mk III C-Ford	LMP900	214	DNF	DNF
2007	Pescarolo Sport	Harold Primat Benoît Tréluyer	Pescarolo 01-Judd	LMP1	325	13th	6th
2008	Pescarolo Sport	Harold Primat Benoît Tréluyer	Pescarolo 01-Judd	LMP1	362	7th	7th
2009	Pescarolo Sport	Bruce Jouanny João Barbosa	Pescarolo 01-Judd	LMP1	368	8th	8th
2011	Pescarolo Team	Emmanuel Collard Julien Jousse	Pescarolo 01-Judd	LMP1	305	DNF	DNF
2012	Thiriet by TDS Racing	Pierre Thiriet Mathias Beche	Oreca 03-Nissan	LMP2	353	8th	2nd
2016	SRT41 by OAK Racing	Jean-Bernard Bouvet Fréderic Sausset	Morgan LMP2-Nissan	UNC	315	38th	N/A