Oliver Gavin

Oliver Gavin
24 Hours of Le Mans career

Nationality	British
Born	(1972-09-29) September 29, 1972 Huntingdon, England
Participating years	2001 –
Teams	Saleen-Allen Speedlab, Corvette Racing
Best finish	4th overall (2006)
Class wins	5 (2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2015)

Oliver Benjamin Gavin (born 29 September 1972),^[1] is a British racing driver who joined Corvette Racing in 2002. He has won five American Le Mans Series class championships, five 24 Hours of Le Mans class wins, five 12 Hours of Sebring class wins and five Petit Le Mans class wins.

He was raised in the village of Felmersham, Bedfordshire. He attended the local Primary school, Pinchmill. At age nine he attended Lincroft Middle School and then took his GCSEs and A-levels at Sharnbrook Upper School and Community College.

Gavin won the British F3 championship in 1995 whilst driving for the Edenbridge Racing team.

2011 Rolex Sports Car

Born in Huntingdon, Gavin was introduced to motor racing through the traditional karting route. After finishing as runner-up in the 1993 British F3 series to Kelvin Burt, Gavin graduated to Formula 3000 in 1994 with Omegaland. He failed to score any points in the five races he contested, and subsequently opted to drop back down to F3 for 1995. He managed to overcome rival Ralph Firman in the final round to snatch the title.

He was test driver for the ill-fated mid-1990s Pacific Grand Prix team. It was proposed that he would drive for the team in the 1995 Australian Grand Prix, but he was not granted the required FIA Super Licence.^[2] Gavin also drove the Safety Car from 1997 to 1999 for the Formula One championship.^[2]

Gavin became a Corvette Racing factory driver in 2002, having raced full-time in the American Le Mans Series GT1 and GT2 classes and currently the IMSA SportsCar Championship GTLM class. His full-time codrivers have been Olivier Beretta (2004-2010), Jan Magnussen (2010-2011) and Tommy Milner (since 2012), whereas Max Papis, Richard Westbrook and Jordan Taylor have been his endurance codrivers.

He has won his class in Le Mans on five occasions (2002, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2015),^[3] the 12 Hours of Sebring five times (2001, 2002, 2006, 2007 and 2013), and Petit Le Mans another five times (2002, 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2010). Also, he won the ALMS GT1 titles in 2005, 2006 and 2007, plus the GT2 title in 2012.

Gavin lives in a village east of Northampton with his wife, Helen, and their three children.^[1]

Racing record

Complete International Formula 3000 results

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

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	DC	Points
1994	Omegaland	Lola T94/50	Zytek-Judd	SIL 10	PAU DNQ	CAT Ret	PER Ret							NC	0
1994	Nordic Racing	Lola T94/50	Ford Cosworth					HOC DNS	SPA	EST	MAG			NC	0
1997	BSE Salisbury Engineering	Lola T96/50	Zytek-Judd	SIL DNQ	PAU DNQ	HEL DNQ	NÜR	PER	HOC	A1R	SPA	MUG	JER	NC	0
1999	European Edenbridge Racing	Lola T99/50	Zytek	IMO 12	MON 4	CAT DNQ	MAG DNQ	SIL 14	A1R DNQ	HOC DNQ	HUN DNQ	SPA 9	NÜR 8	16th	3

24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2001	Saleen-Allen Speedlab	Franz Konrad Terry Borcheller	Saleen S7-R	GTS	246	18th	3rd
2002	Corvette Racing	Ron Fellows Johnny O'Connell	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	GTS	335	11th	1st
2003	Corvette Racing	Kelly Collins Andy Pilgrim	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	GTS	326	11th	3rd
2004	Corvette Racing	Olivier Beretta Jan Magnussen	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	GTS	345	6th	1st
2005	Corvette Racing	Olivier Beretta Jan Magnussen	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	GT1	349	5th	1st
2006	Corvette Racing	Olivier Beretta Jan Magnussen	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	GT1	355	4th	1st
2007	Corvette Racing	Olivier Beretta Max Papis	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	GT1	22	DNF	DNF
2008	Corvette Racing	Olivier Beretta Max Papis	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	GT1	341	15th	3rd
2009	Corvette Racing	Olivier Beretta Marcel Fässler	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	GT1	311	DNF	DNF
2010	Corvette Racing	Olivier Beretta Emmanuel Collard	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	GT2	255	DNF	DNF
2011	Corvette Racing	Richard Westbrook Jan Magnussen	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	GTE Pro	211	DNF	DNF
2012	Corvette Racing	Richard Westbrook Tommy Milner	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	GTE Pro	215	NC	NC
2013	Corvette Racing	Richard Westbrook Tommy Milner	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	GTE Pro	309	22nd	7th
2014	Corvette Racing	Richard Westbrook Tommy Milner	Chevrolet Corvette C7.R	GTE Pro	333	20th	4th
2015	Corvette Racing	Jordan Taylor Tommy Milner	Chevrolet Corvette C7.R	GTE Pro	337	17th	1st
2016	Corvette Racing - GM	Tommy Milner Jordan Taylor	Chevrolet Corvette C7.R	GTE Pro	219	DNF	DNF

Complete GT1 World Championship results

Year	Team	Car	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	Pos	Points
2010	Mad-Croc Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	ABU QR	ABU CR	SIL QR 13	SIL CR 14	BRN QR	BRN CR	PRI QR 19	PRI CR 19	SPA QR 18	SPA CR 17	NÜR QR	NÜR CR	ALG QR	ALG CR	NAV QR	NAV CR	INT QR	INT CR	SAN QR	SAN CR	53rd	0

References

1 2 "Corvette Racing Driver Profile: Oliver Gavin". Archived from the original on 17 May 2010.
1 2 Taylor, Simon (February 2013). "Lunch with... Oliver Gavin". Motor Sport magazine. p. 94. Retrieved 29 September 2015.
↑ "FIA GT Championship Driver Biography: Oliver Gavin". Archived from the original on 17 May 2010.

External links

Official Website

Sporting positions
Preceded by Jan Magnussen	British Formula 3 Champion 1995	Succeeded by Ralph Firman
Preceded by Unknown	F1 Safety Car Driver 1997–1999	Succeeded by Bernd Mayländer
Awards
Preceded by Gareth Rees	McLaren Autosport BRDC Award 1991	Succeeded by Dario Franchitti
Preceded by Kelvin Burt	Autosport British Club Driver of the Year 1992	Succeeded by Dario Franchitti

British Formula 3 & Formula Junior champions

Three-time	Don Parker Jim Russell Dave Walker Roger Williamson

Two-time	Tony Brise Jim Clark Brian Henton Harry Stiller Trevor Taylor

One-time	Alguersuari Arundell Asmer Banting Barrichello Brabham Brandon Burt Byrne Cao Conway Daly Dean Dumfries Fenning de Ferran Firman Fittipaldi Gavin Giacomelli Gugelmin Haberfeld Häkkinen Harvey Hynes Johansson Kane Keegan Kerr King Ledbrook Lehto Leston Magnussen van der Merwe Moss Nasr Nilsson von Opel Pace Palmer Parente Piquet Piquet, Jr. Pitcher Pizzonia Ricciardo Sato Schenken Senna Serra South Stewart I. Taylor Trimmer Vergne Wallace Warwick

Winners of the Chris Bristow Trophy for the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award

Winners of Autosport's British Club Driver of the Year

1980s	1982–83 Martin Bolsover 1984 Rod Birley 1985 Chris Cramer 1986 Paul Warwick 1987 Eddie Irvine 1988 Allan McNish 1989 David Coulthard

1990s	1990 Warren Hughes 1991 Kelvin Burt 1992 Oliver Gavin 1993 Dario Franchitti 1994 James Matthews 1995 Guy Smith 1996 Peter Dumbreck 1997 Doug Bell 1998 Richard Lyons 1999 Andy Priaulx

2000s	2000 Michael Caine 2001 Mike Jordan 2002 Danny Watts 2003 Lewis Hamilton 2004 James Pickford 2005 Andrew Kirkaldy 2006 Sam Bird 2007 Duncan Tappy 2008 Adam Christodoulou 2009 Sarah Moore

2010s	2010 Tom Blomqvist 2011 Alex Lynn 2012 Scott Malvern 2013 Daniel Cammish 2014 Ben Barnicoat 2015 Will Palmer 2016 Lando Norris

Corvette Racing 24 Hours of Le Mans driver timeline, 2000–present
C5-R (GT1)					C6.R (GT1)					C6.R (GT2/GTE)				C7.R (GTE)
2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
Ron Fellows									Antonio García
Chris Kneifel	Scott Pruett	Oliver Gavin
Justin Bell	Johnny O'Connell										Richard Westbrook				Ryan Briscoe	Ricky Taylor
Franck Fréon				Jan Magnussen
Andy Pilgrim				Olivier Beretta								Jordan Taylor
Kelly Collins				Max Papis					Marcel Fässler	Emmanuel Collard	Tommy Milner

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