From Lounge to Le Mans in just 10 months. Gaetan Paletou won Nissan GT Academy Europe just 10 months ago and has now been placed with Greaves Motorsport to race next weekend at the Le Mans 24 Hours in their #41 Nissan powered Gibson LMP2 prototype.
Back in 2011, after three years of racing, Lucas Ordonez became the first GT Academy winner to compete at Le Mans.
In 2013, after just two years of racing, Jann Mardenborough made his debut at La Sarthe and now Paletou will race a Nissan-powered LM P2 car at Le Mans, just 10 months after winning GT Academy.
Since winning GT Academy Europe on 6th August 2014, Paletou has been on Nissan’s intensive driver development programme, the same programme that prepared Jann Mardenborough for GP3 and Lucas Ordonez for Super GT. He raced a Nissan 370Z to numerous victories in club races to obtain his racing licence in time to compete at the 2015 Dubai 24 Hours in a Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3.
Paletou was a key member of the all-gamer driving squad that took fifth place overall and second in class at the Dubai 24 Hours in January before starting simultaneous racing seasons in GT3 (Blancpain Endurance Series) and LM P3 (European Le Mans Series).
When he was told he could be racing the Greaves Motorsport Gibson-Nissan LM P2 car at Le Mans, Gaetan was surprised to say the least:
“I really don’t know what to say…Le Mans!” said Paletou. “This was completely unexpected and I honestly thought that Darren (Cox) was playing a trick on me, like on one of those TV shows. I dreamt of racing at Le Mans as a child but I didn’t expect to ever race there. I love driving the LM P2 car and I really like the guys at Greaves so this is going to be a great experience for me. It is far too soon to talk about expectations, I just want to go there and do the best job I can.”
“One thing that every graduate of GT Academy learns very quickly is that this is not a free ride, so to speak,” said Darren Cox, Global Head of Brand, Marketing & Sales, NISMO. “We push our graduates hard via our driver development programme, which gets stronger and tougher every year. We have given Gaetan all the backing and the training he needs and he has proved to us that he is ready for Le Mans.
“Le Mans is the world’s greatest race and it happens to be in France,” continued Cox. “For a Frenchman like Gaetan to make the transition from virtual-to-reality in less than a year and race at Le Mans is an incredible achievement. He has handled everything we have thrown at him so far so we have absolute faith in his ability to do a good job at Le Mans.”
Paletou completed his ten mandatory rookie laps of Le Mans behind the wheel of the Greaves Gibson-Nissan LM P2 car during the official Le Mans Test Day last weekend.
Full season Greaves driver Bjorn Wirdheim has stepped aside to allow Paletou to join Gary Hirsch and Jon Lancaster at Le Mans.
Team Principal Tim Greaves, “This is an exciting development for the team, it is part of our partnership with Nissan and demonstrates clearly the value of the GT Academy in promoting new talent in our sport. Gaetan is the latest in a long line of promising GT Academy graduates that have driven for the team. We would also like to thank Bjorn for his understanding of the longer term issues, he is very much still part of our plans in 2015.
We are looking forward to a hard race in a very competitive category, we are aiming to maintain our proud record at La Sarthe but are under no illusions about the scale of the task.”
