| Benoît Tréluyer | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| Driver Details | ||
| Nationality |  French
| |
| Date of Birth | 7 December 1976 | |
| Experience | FIA WEC; Super Formula; | |
| Formula E Career | ||
| Tests | 1 | |
| Début |  2019 Rookie Test
| |
| Teams |  Envision Virgin Racing
| |
Benoît Tréluyer (born 7 December 1976 in Alençon, Orne, France) is a former professional racing driver, who serves as the official test and development driver for the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, having aided the development of all of the Series' base cars.[1] A former Audi factory driver and three time winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Tréluyer would also test for Envision Virgin Racing at the 2019 Rookie Test, as well as serve as the lead driver in the development programme for Spark Racing Technologies' Generation 3 car design.[1]
Background[]
Tréluyer's career began with a split in the French youth's attentions, as Tréluyer competed in both karting and motocross in his formative years.[2] In 1995 Tréluyer committed to a career in the former, joining the French Formula Renault Campus series as his first single-seater campaign.[2] Finishing eleventh Tréluyer would move into the full French Formula Renault series in 1996, going on to claim one win in two seasons in French Formula Renault.[2]
Japanese Jousts: 1998 - 2011[]
For 1998 Tréluyer would move into the realm of Formula 3, competing in the French F3 Championship, which yielded a ninth place finish, and a cameo in the British F3 Championship.[2] 1999 saw Tréluyer secure his first F3 wins en-route to third in F3 France, with the Frenchman also securing victory in the one-off F3 European Cup race as well as a podium in the Korean Super Prix.[2] However, unable to secure funding to progress into International F3000, Tréluyer opted to move to Asia in 2000, signing up to the Japanese F3 Championship for the campaign.[2]
Two seasons of Japanese F3 would follow for Tréluyer, before he moved into the full Formula Nippon series in 2002, alongside a partial campaign in JGTC.[2] After finding his feet in 2002, the 2003 season saw Tréluyer secure his maiden victories in both series, resulting in him finishing as runner-up in Formula Nippon, and fourth in the freshly renamed Super GT Series.[2] Tréluyer duly became a regular podium finisher in Formula Nippon after that, culminating in the Frenchman winning the title in 2006.[2]
Tréluyer would finish as runner-up twice more in Formula Nippon before the end of the decade, while also taking the honours in Super GT in 2008, and finishing as runner-up in 2011.[2]
Audi Ace: 2010-2017[]
The 2010 season would see Tréluyer sign up as a factory driver in Audi Sport's sportscar programme, having race for Pescarolo and the Peugeot's teams in the 24 Hours of Le Mans since 2007.[2] Finishing second overall on his Audi debut at Le Mans, Tréluyer moved back to Europe at the end of the 2011 season, having been unveiled as one of Audi's factory drivers for the new World Endurance Championship, partnering Marcel Fässler and André Lotterer, having won the 2011 Le Mans race with them.[2] It proved to be a good decision by the Ingolstadt manufacturer, with a second Le Mans win in a row kick-starting a campaign which saw Tréluyer, Fässler and Lotterer become the inaugural WEC Champions for Audi.[2]
Tréluyer would be an ever present in Audi's squad alongside his co-pilots through to the end of the 2016 season when Audi left the WEC, finishing as runner-up three times while also claiming one further Le Mans win in 2014.[2] In 2017 Tréluyer moved into Audi's roster of GT3 customer drivers, with the Frenchman going on to make appearances in various series including the Italian GT3 Championship and Blancpain GT Series.[2]
A Testing Future: 2018 - Present[]
In 2018 Tréluyer began to wind down his professional racing career, only making a handful of GT3 appearances for Audi, as well as making his debut in the DTM in 2020, albeit in only one round.[2]
Formula E History[]
Tréluyer was first approached to help develop the original FIA Formula E Championship car, the Spark-Renault SRT_01E during its mid-development phase, joining Frédéric Makowiecki on the roster of drivers.[3] Tréluyer would subsequently serve as FE and Spark's main test driver during the development of the Spark SRT05e, the second generation FE car, and would get the chance to same a race prepared version at the 2019 Rookie Test, when Envision Virgin Racing selected him to test one of their cars alongside Nyck de Vries.[4] Despite being outpaced by his younger teammate, Tréluyer would spend the entire test day focusing on race simulations, completing the third highest lap total of the test.[5]
Tréluyer returned to his Series testing duties once the Generation 3 design entered its first testing phase in October 2021, and would again serve as the Series' main development driver for the new car.[1][6] Tréluyer duly piloted the Gen 3 at its official unveiling at the 2022 Monaco E-Prix, completing a demo-run of the full Circuit de Monaco in the new car.[7]
Full Formula E Record[]
Shown below are a series of tables outlining Benoît Tréluyer's career in Formula E in statistical form:
| Benoît Tréluyer's Formula E Test Record | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Entrant | No. | Car | Role |
| 2014 | Spark Racing Technologies[3]
|
0 | Spark-Renault SRT_01E | Development Driver |
| 2017 | Spark Racing Technologies[8]
|
0 | Spark SRT05e | Development Driver |
| 2018/19 | Envision Virgin Racing[4]
|
4 | Audi e-tron FE05 | Test Driver |
| 2021 | Spark Racing Technologies[1]
|
0 | Spark Gen 3 | Development Driver |
References[]
Videos and Images:
References:
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 'Behind the wheel of the Gen3 with test driver Benoit Treluyer', fiaformulae.com, (FIA Formula E, 29/04/2022), https://www.fiaformulae.com/en/news/2022/april/gen3-explained-test-driver-benoit-treluyer, (Accessed 10/08/2022)
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 'Benoît Tréluyer', driverdb.com, (DriverDB AB, 2021), https://www.driverdb.com/drivers/benoit-treluyer/, (Accessed 22/06/2021)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedBTre14A - ↑ 4.0 4.1 Alex Kalinauckas, 'Treluyer, de Vries join Virgin for Morocco FE test', motorsport.com, (Motorsport Network, 07/01/2019), https://www.motorsport.com/formula-e/news/treluyer-de-vries-virgin-marrakesh-test/4320159/, (Accessed 07/01/2019)
- ↑ 'Marrakesh Rookie Testing: Results Booklet', fiaformulae.alkamelsystems.com, (FIA Formula E, 13/01/2019), http://fiaformulae.alkamelsystems.com/Results/04_2018-19/04_Marrakesh%20Rookie%20Testing/96_ABB%20FIA%20Formula%20E%20Championship/66_Marrakesh%20Rookie%20Test%20Booklet.pdf, (Accessed 13/01/2019)
- ↑ Sam Smith, 'Formula E’s new Gen3 car completes first test in secret', the-race.com, (The Race, 26/10/2021), https://the-race.com/formula-e/formula-es-new-gen3-car-completes-first-test-in-secret/, (Accessed 10/08/2022)
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
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