Justin Bell

Justin Derek Bell (born 23 February 1968 in Rustington, Sussex, England) is a British racecar driver, who after a successful career behind the wheel, transitioned into the media world in front of the camera and established himself as one of the top US based automotive content hosts. He is the son of Derek Bell.^[1]

Career

Like many successful car racers, Justin Bell nurtured and developed his passion for speed and competitive racing at an early age. With natural talent and the encouragement of his father Derek Bell, a five-time Le Mans 24 hours winner, he started out fast and got faster, and soon began carving his own place in history. Since beginning his career in 1988, Justin has achieved many significant racing accomplishments, including the 1997 FIA GT2 World Championship, winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1998 and second-place finishes in Le Mans and Daytona, and a pair of SCCA Trans-Am wins.

Along the way he raced for major car manufacturers including Saab, Peugeot, Porsche, BMW, Dodge and General Motors. For Dodge Viper, he won the 1997 FIA GT2 world championship and the GT2 class at Le Mans in 1998. In 2000 Justin signed with General Motors as a driver for the factory Corvette Racing team, finishing second in the Daytona 24 Hours, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Petit Le Mans.

Early in his career, as Justin made consistent progress through a variety of racing categories, all the while appearing in various television programs. In 1993, he was co-host of the motor sports television program 555 Performance World, which ran on Asia's largest satellite network Star TV and was seen by over 80 million viewers. This led to him hosting a six-part series, The International Young Driver of the Year on BBC television.

Since 2005 Justin has worked frequently with Speed Channel as a host of various live and format based TV shows, such as the Barrett Jackson Auctions, American Le Mans Series, Grand American Racing, Test Drive and Shut up and Drive.

Justin co-founded Bell & Ammo with Nicolai Iuul in 2013 to create high production value, entertaining, original automotive lifestyle content. Their primary show is The Worlds Fastest Car Show sponsored by eBay Mobile and airs on the wildly successful Motor Trend YouTube Channel. Nicolai produces and directs while Justin hosts.

Other career milestones. Justin and his father raced together in the 1992 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans. He tried to qualify for the 1996 Indianapolis 500 in a 4 year old Lola chassis. Later in 1997, he won the FIA GT championship in the GT2 class^[2] in a Dodge Viper GTS-R, racing for Team Oreca. From 2000-2004 he had his own racing school which trained the pupils with Chevrolet Corvette cars.^[3] In 2001-2003 he raced in the Trans Am Series, winning two major races at Houston and Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and took the Rookie of the Year title.^[4] In 2009 Bell debuted as the driving instructor for the celebrities on The Jay Leno Show^[2] where he also interviews the celebrity for the website.

Complete 24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
1992	ADA Engineering	Tiff Needell Derek Bell	Porsche 962C GTi	C3	284	12th	5th
1994	Rent-A-Car Racing Team Luigi Racing	René Arnoux Bertrand Balas	Dodge Viper RT/10	LM GT1	273	12th	3rd
1995	Harrods Mach One Racing David Price Racing	Andy Wallace Derek Bell	McLaren F1 GTR	GT1	296	3rd	2nd
1996	Viper Team Oreca	Dominique Dupuy Perry McCarthy	Chrysler Viper GTS-R	GT1	96	DNF	DNF
1997	Viper Team Oreca	Pierre Yver John Morton	Chrysler Viper GTS-R	GT2	278	14th	5th
1998	Viper Team Oreca	David Donohue Luca Drudi	Chrysler Viper GTS-R	GT2	317	11th	1st
1999	Viper Team Oreca	Tommy Archer Marc Duez	Chrysler Viper GTS-R	GT2	318	12th	1st
2000	Corvette Racing	Ron Fellows Chris Kneifel	Chevrolet Corvette C5R	LM GTS	326	11th	4th

References