Jordi Gene

5/12/1970

Record updated

Jordi Gene has raced in tourig cars, endurance racing, trucks, single seaters and motorbikes with consideable success. He came close to securing a full F1 drive but had to settle with a testing contract at Benetton.

Jordi Gene
Jordi Gene was born in Sabadell in 5th of December 1970. Jordi comes from a motorsport family. His father is an enthusiast and his brother Marc raced in F-1 for Minardi and BMW Williams.

He won the Spanish Karting Championship in 1986 and moved up to cars, entering and winning the Fiat Uno Championship in 1987 and the Spanish Formula Ford Championship in 1988.

In 1989, when he was 17, he made the decision to giving up his studies and move to England for five years. There he drove in the British Formula Ford series and took part in the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch, finishing 4th.

Moving up to British F3 in 1990, Gené finished 4th in 1991 with West Surrey Racing, driving a Ralt-Honda. At the Marlboro Masters in Zandvoort, he finished runner up to David Coulthard. He also raced at the Macau Grand Prix and the Fuji Superprix, which he won.

In 1992 he graduated to F3000 driving a Reynard-Mugen with Marlboro sponsorship, partnering Laurent Aïello at Pacific Racing. He won the opening round at Silverstone and finished 5th in the Championship.

He was involved with the abortive Bravo F1 project in 1993 and returned to F3000 with TWR but failed to score any points. However he picjed up a testing contact with the Benetton team for 1994, while also competing in F3000 driving a Lola for Nordic Racing.

With no drive forth coming in Formula 1, Gené returned to Spain and joined the Spanish Touring Car Championship. In 1995, he became an Opel works driver and drove an Opel Vectra to second place in the championship.

A switch to Audi in 1996 saw him take the title with five wins. Gené remained with Audi for 1997.

In 1998 he drove the Cepsa MAN in the European Truck Racing Cup. But, after two years fruitless years he returned to cars full time in 2000.

Gené entered the 24 Hours of Le Mans, racing in the LMP675 category in a Volkswagen-powered Reynard for Noel Del Bello's ROC team, and also took part in the Spanish GT Championship in a Porsche.

For 2001, Gené stayed with ROC and took the Reynard-VW to a class win at Le Mans, finishing 5th overall. The team's Reynard-VW also took part in the European Le Mans Series, winning the 500km race at Most in the LMP675 class. At the end of the year, Gené returned to touring cars by taking part in the 24 Hours of Barcelona, where he drove the winning Volkswagen Golf.

He then joined Roberto Ravaglia's BMW Team Italy-Spain in 2002, driving a BMW 320i in the European Touring Car Championship and finishing 8th overall, but although the BMW was one of the two most competitive cars in the field, Gené left the team at the end of year to join SEAT's new attack on the ETCC, starting in 2003.

After a disappointing first season (17th place overall), the Spanish driver's (and the team's) fortunes improved in 2004, where Gené finished on the podium twice, taking the Toledo to 8th place overall in the series. Gené also co-drove the SEAT Toledo GT car in the Spanish GT, winning the title in 2003 with Gines Vivancos, but in 2004, the new SEAT Cupra GT was not so competitive.

In 2005, Gené finally took a win in the World Touring Car Championship, with the brand new SEAT León. In 2006, Gené remained with the team. He took one win at Curitaba but generally had a poor season finishing 10th in the Championship.



hr

<