Olivier Pla

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Olivier Pla

Olivier Pla is a race car driver born in Toulouse, France on October 22, 1981. Partnered with Ryan Sharp, Pla drove in the 2005 GP2 Series for the Price team. Pla's career started in 2000 in French Formula Campus before moving on to French Formula Three in 2001 with the Saulnier team. In 2002 he moved to the ASM team, and stayed on there in 2003 when the series joined the Formula Three Euroseries.

2004 seen Pla leave the Euroseries, joining the World Series by Nissan for some races with the RC and Carlin Motorsport teams. In 2005 he raced in the inaugural GP2 Series season. In the early part of the season he stalled on the grid several times - some blamed the GP2 cars for the high number of stallings, while others noticed that the same drivers seemed to be affected regularly. In another race he selected reverse instead of first and went backwards into his team-mate's car! However, he took advantage of the reverse grid system to finish 8th in Race One and thus take pole for Race Two twice, winning both those races to finish 11th in the championship. He remained with DPR for 2006, but was dropped mid-season after running out of sponsorship, after a difficult period which saw him score no points and injure his hand in Monaco.