Éric Hélary

Éric Hélary

Nationality	French
24 Hours of Le Mans career
Participating years	1993 - 1998, 2002 - 2003, 2005 - 2006, 2014
Teams	Peugeot Talbot Sport, Michel Hommell, Courage Compétition, Viper Team Oreca, BMW Motorsport, Toyota Motorsport, Pescarolo Sport
Best finish	1st (1993)
Class wins	2 (1993, 1995)

Éric Hélary (born 10 August 1966) is a professional racing driver from Paris. His career has encompassed single seater formulae, endurance sports car racing, and touring cars. He won the French Formula Three Championship in 1990 and is best known for his win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1993. He was champion 2011 of Euro Racecar.^[1]

Single seater career

Hélary's racing career began in a conventional way, with a period of karting between 1981 and 1984. He progressed to French Formula Ford in 1987 and won the title in the following year, then progressed to French Formula Three in 1989 and won that title in his second year. His single seater career ended in International Formula 3000.

Sports cars

Hélary's Peugeot 905B

Hélary first participated in sports car racing in the Peugeot Spyder Cup one-make championship in 1992 and secured the drivers' title in 1993. In the same year, he made his 24 Hours of Le Mans début in the factory Peugeot 905 alongside Christophe Bouchut and Geoff Brabham. He had previously driven this car with Bouchut in 1992.

After a period in touring cars, Hélary returned to endurance racing in the FIA GT Championship in 1996, driving a Chrysler Viper. He did not compete again in sports cars until a one-off return to FIA GTs in 2001. His next participation in endurance racing was another single race, this time in the FIA Sportscar Championship in 2003, driving a Pescarolo Courage-Peugeot alongside Nicolas Minassian. He made another one-off appearance with Pescarolo in the 2004 Le Mans Endurance Series and returned to the series for a full season in 2006. He is currently employed by Peugeot as its official test driver for the Peugeot 908 HDi FAP.

Touring cars

Hélary made his touring car début in the French Supertourisme championship in 1994, driving for Opel. He was classified fifth in the standings and imrpoved to the championship runner-up position in 1995. He made a departure into ice racing during the winter of 1996 by entering the Trophée Andros with Opel. He adapted well and finished in fourth position over all, then finished second over all in the 1997 season.

Hélary spent the remainder of 1997 working as a test driver for BMW's Super Tourenwagen Cup team in Germany and then returned to Opel for two years of racing in the series in 1998 and 1999. When the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters was relaunched in 2000, Hélary and Opel remained together. He made one more appearance in the DTM in 2002 before returning to French Supertourisme for a third season, in which he finished fourth in the standings. A full season of sports car racing intervened before Hélary's next, and so far last, touring car programme. 2005 brought a fourth season in French Supertourisme as well as competing in one round of the World Touring Car Championship in a Peugeot 407 for Peugeot Sport Denmark.

Racing record

24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
1993	Peugeot Talbot Sport	Christophe Bouchut Geoff Brabham	Peugeot 905 Evo 1B	C1	375	1st	1st
1994	Michel Hommel	Alain Cudini Jean-Christophe Boullion	Bugatti EB110 SS	GT1	230	DNF	DNF
1995	Courage Compétition	Bob Wollek Mario Andretti	Courage C34-Porsche	WSC	297	2nd	1st
1996	Viper Team Oreca	Philippe Gache Olivier Beretta	Chrysler Viper GTS-R	GT1	283	21st	12th
1997	Team BMW Motorsport BMW Team Schnitzer	Peter Kox Roberto Ravaglia	McLaren F1 GTR	GT1	358	3rd	2nd
1998	Toyota Motorsports Toyota Team Europe	Martin Brundle Emmanuel Collard	Toyota GT-One	GT1	191	DNF	DNF
2002	Pescarolo Sport	Stéphane Ortelli Ukyo Katayama	Courage C60-Peugeot	LMP900	144	DNF	DNF
2003	Pescarolo Sport	Nicolas Minassian Soheil Ayari	Courage C60-Peugeot	LMP900	352	9th	7th
2005	Pescarolo Sport	Soheil Ayari Sébastien Loeb	Pescarolo C60 Hybrid-Judd	LMP1	288	DNF	DNF
2006	Pescarolo Sport	Sébastien Loeb Franck Montagny	Pescarolo C60 Hybrid-Judd	LMP1	376	2nd	2nd
2014	IMSA Performance Matmut	Erik Maris Jean-Marc Merlin	Porsche 997 GT3-RSR	GTE Am	317	34th	13th

Complete Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters results

(key)

• † — Retired, but was classified as he completed 90% of the winner's race distance.

Complete World Touring Car Championship results

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

References

• Driver profile Speedsportmag.com Retrieved on September 11, 2007.

http://www.erichelary.com/site.html