Jordi Gené
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jordi Gené Guerrero (born in Sabadell, Spain, in 5 December 1970) is a racing driver, competing in the WTCC for SEAT. His younger brother, Marc is also a racing driver.
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[edit] Early career
After winning the Spanish Karting Championship in 1986, Gené moved up to automobiles, where he became instantly competitive, winning the Fiat Uno Championship in 1987 and the Spanish Formula Ford Championship the following year.
In 1989, Gené immigrated to England, where he drove in the British F.Ford series, also taking part in the Formula Ford Festival, where he took 4th place. Moving up to British F3, Gené spent two years in the series, taking 4th place in 1991 with West Surrey Racing, driving a Ralt-Honda. Gené also attended the Marlboro Masters in Zandvoort, where he lost the international F3 meeting to David Coulthard, and took part in the traditional season-ender races in Asia, the Macau Grand Prix and Fuji Superprix, winning the latter.
[edit] Formula 3000 and Formula 1 attempts
Thanks to Marlboro sponsorship, Gené found a seat in Formula 3000 in 1992, partnering Laurent Aïello in Pacific Racing. Gené won the opening round at Silverstone and finished 5th in the Championship in his Reynard-Mugen.
The following year, Gené was involved in the Bravo F1 project, an attempt by former Spanish F1 driver Adrian Campos to create a Formula 1 team. However, the project was aborted before any car was built and Gené repeated F3000, this time with TWR Jr., but failed to score a single point. However, the Walkinshaw connection led him to a test driver contract with the Benetton team in 1994, alongside his third year in F3000, now with Nordic Racing and a Lola chassis.
[edit] Professional career
Failing to move up to Formula 1, Gené returned to his native Spain and joined the Spanish Touring Car Championship. In 1995, he became an Opel works driver and drove an Opel Vectra to second place in the championship, but a switch to Audi the following year gave him the title after five wins. Gené remained with Audi in the STW in 1997.
Gené's career took a completely different path in 1998, when he accepted Manuel Santos Marcos' invitation to drive the Cepsa MAN in the European Truck Racing Cup. However, in spite of spending two years in truck racing, he achieved no notable results and went back to cars full time in 2000. Gené entered the 24 Hours of Le Mans, racing in the LMP675 category in a Volkswagen-powered Reynard for Noel Del Bello's ROC team, and also took part in the Spanish GT Championship in a Porsche. In 2001, Gené remained with ROC and took the Reynard-VW to a class win at Le Mans, also climbing to 5th place overall. The team's Reynard-VW also took part in the European Le Mans Series, winning the 500km Most in the LMP675 class. At the end of the year, Gené returned to touring cars by taking part in the 24 Hours of Barcelona, where he drove the winning Volkswagen Golf.
This lead to him joining Roberto Ravaglia's BMW Team Italy-Spain in 2002, driving a BMW 320i in the European Touring Car Championship and finishing 8th overall, but although the BMW was one of the two most competitive cars in the field, Gené left the team at the end of year to join SEAT's new attack on the ETCC, starting in 2003.
After a disappointing first season (17th place overall), the Spanish driver's (and the team's) fortunes improved in 2004, where Gené finished on the podium twice, taking the Toledo to 8th place overall in the series. Gené also co-drove the SEAT Toledo GT car in the Spanish GT, winning the title in 2003 with Gines Vivancos, but in 2004, the new SEAT Cupra GT was not so competitive. In 2005, Gené finally took a win in the World Touring Car Championship, with the brand new SEAT León. In 2006, Gené remains with the team, and has already won one race.
