Elton Julian (born August 16, 1974) is a professional racing driver and racing team owner born in the Canary Islands of Spain. He grew up in Ecuador and the United States.[1] He speaks English, French and Spanish fluently.
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Julian began his career in go karts at age 13 and then moved on to Formula Ford at the Skip Barber Racing School where he won 42 races from 66 starts and three regional championships in 1990.
In 1992 he raced in the British Formula Three Championship for the Alan Docking Racing and Fortec Motorsport teams finishing 8th in the championship with one pole position and one win, becoming the youngest winner in series history.[2] That same year he also competed in the Indy Lights series at Vancouver and finished 8th. In 1993, he raced in the French Formula Three Championship and finished third in the drivers championship for the Formula Project team.
In 1994, Julian signed a multi-year test and reserve driver contract with the French Larrousse Formula One team, completing several tests at Circuit Paul Ricard in Le Castellet. In his first test he was over half a second faster than regular driver Erik Comas and Julian was considered a potential candidate for a race seat in 1995. However, the Larrousse team closed its doors for financial reasons just before the start of the 1995 season despite last minute attempts to save the squad by the F3000 racing team DAMS and other potential suitors.[3]
He entered the International Formula 3000 series for three races in 1994 and made his debut at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium for the Omegaland team. He competed in the remaining races of the 1994 International Formula 3000 season and finished 13th in France at Magny-Cours. He returned to International Formula 3000 in 1996 and competed full-time for Nordic Racing. The season was not particularly successful as the team failed to come to grips with the all new Lola chassis and Julian only broke into the points at the final race of the season in Germany at the Hockenheimring with a fifth place result. He finished 14th in the championship. In 1997 he tested a Formula Nippon car at the Suzuka Circuit in Japan and was offered a contract for the following season but a lack of funding kept him out of racing until 1999 when he made two Atlantic Championship starts for the PDR team resulting in a fifth place finish at Long Beach and a DNF in Montreal.
When the deal to race for the Larrousse F1 team fell apart in 1995, Julian turned to sports cars and drove in two World Sportscar Championship races with Euromotorsport in a Ferrari F333SP prototype finishing second in class at the 24 Hours of Daytona and setting a new lap record at the 12 Hours of Sebring. After the end of his single seater career and another long absence from racing which lasted from 1999 until 2005, he drove a DOME S101 LMP1 prototype in the 2005 24 Hours of Le Mans with Jan Lammers and the Racing for Holland team. He finished fifth in the prototype class and seventh place overall, recorded the teams fastest race laps and was the highest finishing rookie in the race. He then drove a Courage C65 LMP2 prototype in the American Le Mans Series' Petit Le Mans for Kruse Motorsport and finished fourth in class. In 2006, he drove in the LMP2 prototype class at the 12 Hours of Sebring for Barazi Epsilon with another fourth place finish in the LMP2 category. Starting in 2007 he focused on team ownership, founding DragonSpeed and entering cars in the American Le Mans Series, the Grand-Am Series, and the Pirelli Drivers Cup Series.[1] In 2010 with the introduction of the American Le Mans Series' new spec racing LMPC prototype class, Julian teamed with veteran sports car driver Gunnar Jeannette to race the Oreca FLM09 chassis for Green Earth Team Gunnar. Julian finished the season third in the drivers championship, with seven podium finishes in eight starts and four wins (Long Beach, Lime Rock, Road America and Mosport).
In 2011 Julian entered the DragonSpeed Ferrari F430 GT in the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona and acting as team owner/team manager, brought the Ferrari home to a 15th place finish in the GT class, making the car the highest finishing F430 in the history of the event. As a result of the performance at Daytona, DragonSpeed and Julian were asked to provide technical support for the new Ferrari 458 Italia GA (Grand Am) development program which began testing in July 2011 at Daytona[4] [5]. As a driver he ended the 2011 season third in the ALMS LMPC prototype drivers championship with five podium finishes in seven starts including a win from pole position at Lime Rock and a first place finish at the six hour Laguna Seca round[6][7]. Julian also drove the Oreca prototype in the FLM class for three rounds of the 2011 European Le Mans Series finishing 2nd at Paul Ricard in France, 2nd at Spa Francorchamps in Belgium and 4th at Imola in Italy.[8]
| Year | Class | No | Tyres | Car | Team | Co-Drivers | Laps | Pos. | Class Pos. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | LMP1 | 10 | D | Dome S101 Judd GV4 4.0L V10 |
Racing for Holland | Jan Lammers John Bosch |
346 | 7th | 5th |