Gunnar Jeannette

Gunnar Jeannette
Gunnar Jeannette
Nationality	American
Born	May 5, 1982 (age 41); West Palm Beach, FL
FIA World Endurance Championship; Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge career
Current team	Luxury Racing; Multimatic Motorsports
Previous series
	American Le Mans Series; Rolex Sports Car Series
Championship titles
2011	ALMS LMPC Championship

Gunnar Jeannette (born May 5, 1982 in West Palm Beach, Florida) is an American racing driver who competes in the FIA World Endurance Championship and Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge for Luxury Racing and Multimatic Motorsports, respectively. He won the 2011 American Le Mans Series season LMPC Drivers' Championship alongside Ricardo González and Eric Lux and is the youngest-ever driver to finish the 24 Hours of Le Mans.^[1]

Early racing career

Jeannette started racing, driving in Historic Sports Car racing at the age of 16. He made the jump to the professional ranks less than one year later.

American Le Mans Series

Jeannette made his American Le Mans Series debut in 2000, scoring six top-10 finishes in seven starts in both the Prototype and GT classes. In 2002, he made his LMP900 class debut in a Panoz before moving to the factory supported JML Team Panoz squad in 2003, where he scored his best-ever overall finish of third (2nd in class) at Mosport.

For 2004, Jeannette moved back to GT2, piloting the Panoz Esperante GTLM for what turned out to be a three-year stint with two different teams. His best result was a fourth at Mosport and Petit Le Mans with co-driver Tommy Milner in 2006.

After making a handful of starts in 2008 for Corsa Motorsports, Jeannette returned to full-time ALMS competition in 2010 in the new LMPC class. Driving for his father's Green Earth Team Gunnar outfit, Jeannette became the first LMPC pole winner in series history. He went on to win four races with Elton Julian and finish 2nd in the Drivers Championship that year.

Jeannette joined CORE autosport for 2011 and continued his streak of success in LMPC, taking two wins, three pole positions and three fastest race laps en route to the LMPC Drivers Championship. He shared the honor with season-long co-driver Ricardo Gonzalez and Genoa Racing's Eric Lux, who ended up on equal points to the CORE autosport duo.

24 Hours of Le Mans

At the age of 18, Jeannette became the youngest-ever driver to finish the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in his race debut in 2000. He's since competed an additional seven times, with a best finish of fifth overall in 2003.

Grand-Am

Jeannette made his debut in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series GTU class at the 2000 Rolex 24 at Daytona. He won his first-ever Rolex Series race one year later in the GTS class and has since made sporadic starts in the series.

In 2005, Jeannette ran his first full season in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge, finishing sixth in GS Points Standings with two victories to his credit driving for Multimatic Motorsports. He returned to full-time competition in 2010 with co-driver Frankie Montecalvo, finishing 10th in the GS class championship.

For 2012, Jeannette rejoined Multimatic Motorsports for its new Street Tuner-class Ford Focus ST-R development program.

FIA World Endurance Championship

Jeannette made his FIA World Endurance Championship debut in the Six Hours of Spa-Francorchamps on May 5, 2012, co-driving the No. 58 Luxury Racing Ferrari F458 Italia with Frankie Montecalvo and Pierre Ehret to a fifth-place finish in the GTE-Am class.^[2] The trio did not finish the 2012 24 Hours of Le Mans after suffering an accident during the overnight hours.

Personal life

Jeannette is an avid extreme sporting enthusiast. Since 2004, he's racked up more than 1,500 skydives and 200 BASE jumps from all corners of the globe. Jeannette has also participated in world record skydives and has been featured on MTV, People Magazine, USA Today and several other local and national publications.^[3]

24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2000	Manthey Racing Gunnar Racing	Michael Brockman Mike Lauer	Porsche 911 GT3-R	GT	261	27th	6th
2001	Freisinger Motorsport	Romain Dumas Philippe Haezebrouck	Porsche 911 GT3-RS	GT	282	7th	2nd
2002	Panoz Motor Sports	Bill Auberlen David Donohue	Panoz LMP01 Evo-Élan	LMP900	230	DNF	DNF
2003	JML Team Panoz	Olivier Beretta Max Papis	Panoz LMP01 Evo-Élan	LMP900	360	5th	3rd
2004	Epsilon Sport	Renaud Derlot Gavin Pickering	Courage C65-JPX	LMP2	124	DNF	DNF
2006	Multimatic Motorsport Team Panoz	Scott Maxwell Tommy Milner	Panoz Esperante GT-LM	GT2	34	DNF	DNF
2008	Team Bruichladdich Radical	Marc Rostan Ben Devlin	Radical SR9-AER	LMP2	297	31st	6th
2012	Luxury Racing	Pierre Ehret Frankie Montecalvo	Ferrari 458 Italia GTC	GTE Am	146	DNF	DNF