Bio
Featuring an incredible record of success in his six American Le Mans Series seasons, Romain Dumas enjoyed his first championship performance in 2007. The 30-year-old French racer teamed up with Timo Bernhard to create a dominant duo in the LMP2 class as they raced the DHL Porsche RS Spyder to eight class victories and six overall wins on their way to the title.
Dumas and Bernhard will pair up again in 2008 looking to defend their title in an effort to bring Penske Racing its third straight LMP2 crown.
The dominant 2007 season proved to be a culmination of the productivity that Dumas has found racing in the United States. An accomplished European racer with a strong open-wheel background, Dumas has certainly discovered a winning formula in sports car racing, especially since becoming a Porsche factory driver in 2003. In 43 career American Le Mans Series starts entering the 2008 season, Dumas has experienced 19 wins and 14 pole positions, finishing on the podium in a remarkable 33 races.
After establishing himself as a premier karting racer in France as a teenager, Dumas entered French Formula Renault and French Formula 3 competition in the late 1990s. He made his first 24 Hours of Le Mans start in 2001, finishing second in the GT class and emerging as the top rookie. He continued to test himself in sports car competition but he also excelled in the European F3000 Series, producing three victories in 2002, the same season he earned a test at Barcelona with the Renault Formula 1 team. Dumas made his first American Le Mans Series start in ’02 with little fanfare but he opened some eyes the following season when he won the GT class at Petit Le Mans. He also signed on with Porsche in ’03 and he finished third in German Porsche Carrera Cup with three wins.
After winning the GT class at Monza in European Le Mans competition, Dumas produced two wins and four poles in nine ALMS starts in 2004. Teaming with Marc Lieb in an Alex Job Racing Porsche, Dumas won at Portland and Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in the GT class.
In his first full ALMS season in 2005, Dumas paired up with Bernhard and the winning combination clicked almost immediately. Dumas and Bernhard won four races for Alex Job Racing in a Porsche 911 GT3 RSR tying for second in the GT2 class championship chase.
Making his debut in the new Porsche RS Spyder for Penske Racing in 2006, Dumas and Bernhard were very productive. He scored four victories and three class poles to finish third in the championship. The signature performance of the season came at Mid-Ohio where Dumas and Bernhard produced Porsche’s first overall victory in ALMS in seven years. Dumas led a 1-2 Penske Racing finish in the event, edging the team of Sascha Maassen and Lucas Luhr, who would go on to claim the LMP2 title.
Finishing third in the championship in ’06 stoked the fires for the furious run in the 2007 season as Dumas and Bernhard re-wrote the series history books.
|