José Pedro Mourão Lamy Viçoso, OIH, known as Pedro Lamy (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈpeðɾu laˈmi]; born 20 March 1972) is a Portuguese professional racing driver currently racing in endurance races teaming up with Mathias Lauda and gentleman driver Paul Dalla Lana. He was the first Portuguese driver to score a point in a Formula One World Championship event, in the 1995 Australian Grand Prix, for Minardi.
Lotus (1993–1994)
In 1993, Lamy got the chance to race in the final four Formula One races of the season, replacing injured Alessandro Zanardi in the Lotus team. He scored no points, but was signed for the team to drive the full 1994 season. Lamy drove the first four races, before suffering a serious crash in private testing at Silverstone, breaking both legs and wrists and sitting in the sidelines for over a year.
Minardi (1995–1996)
After intense physical therapy, Lamy signed a contract to race in the second half of the 1995 season for Minardi, replacing Pierluigi Martini, and scoring the team’s only point of the season in Adelaide, despite a spectacular spin and struggling to get going again halfway through the race. Lamy stayed with Minardi for 1996, but the team’s lack of resources meant the car received little development, and the Portuguese driver finishe his F1 career, after 32 Grand Prix starts. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
Born in Aldeia Galega da Merceana, Alenquer, Portugal, on 20th March 1972, Pedro Lamy (José Pedro Mourão Lamy Viçoso, OIH) started on motorbikes when he was 6 years old and then progressed through karts and went on to race in F1 for Lotus and Minardi. His father had competed in a number of rallyies in an NSU and Toyotas though stopped for a period after Pedro was born. After acquiring a motorbike and doing junior and mini-moto events Pedro moved into karting when he was thirteen and then into Formula Ford. Supported by his father and some sponsors, he won the Portuguese FFord Championship in his debut year in 1989 and then started in Formula Opel Lotus with Derek Bell Racing. He described it as “a tough time, my first time away from home and my English was basically zero. It was terrible. I was living with a Swiss and Swedish driver, Cedric Reynard and Peter Aslund, and I looked at them like ‘God, these are the best drivers in the world.’ After a few races he switched to David Sears and learned from team-mate Vincenzo Sospiri, winning two races in the national championship and taking a podium in a race in Europe. In 1991 he was in his second season in the series, having switched to Draco Racing, and he ended the year as champion. Then came an entry into German F3 with Willi Weber’s team but before this he had a prize test drive in a DTM car, surprisingly finding himself alongside ex-F1 driver James Hunt. Pedro won almost half the races that year and beat Marco Werner in the fight for the Championship plus during the year won the Marlboro Masters event in Zandvoort and finished second in the Macau Grand Prix.
In 1993 he raced for Crypton Engineering in F3000 and had win at Pau, podiums at Donington Park, Hockenheim and Mugello and fourth places at the Nurburgring and Spa. However, mishaps at Enna, a spin at Spa and retirement in the finale saw him finish second in the series, one point behind DAMS driving Olivier Panis. At Enna he was leading the race but spun on a dirty part of the circuit and came back on behind David Coulthard. Pushing hard to catch him he said he “wasn’t counting the laps very well and I thought it was the last lap…I caught him, and I’m not proud of it, I thought ‘either I win, or nobody wins.’ I pushed him under braking and he went straight on, and I thought I had won. I was celebrating. When I realised, I had a damaged front wing and spun on the last lap out of the lead.”
Then came a call to replace an injured Alessandro Zanardi at Lotus for the final F1 races and he came home eleventh and thirteenth at Monza and Fuji though retired in Portugal and Australia. The team signed him to drive for the 1994 season and in the first four races he was tenth, eighth and eleventh in the Brazilian, Pacific and Monaco rounds. But then came Imola, the fateful weekend where motor racing lost Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna, plus at the start Pedro’s Lotus ploughed into the back of JJ Lehto’s stalled Benetton, with a wheel flying into the crowd, injuring a spectator. He and JJ Lehto walked away from it but shortly after this came a violent accident while testing at Silverstone, with him ending up in a pedestrian tunnel after Abbey Corner and the rest of the Lotus’s parts strewn all over the asphalt and further afield. His car had vaulted over a 10 foot fence though fortunately it was a private test and no spectators were in that area at the time. Of the accident, he told how he “suddenly lost the car. The rear wing broke at Abbey corner, the car spun and I just flew. The car was completely destroyed, Johnny (Herbert) was the first car that arrived, and I remember having some crazy conversations with him because of the morphine, but not much of the recovery.” Johnny had been following him and at first thought he had perished, describing how “there was lots of dust and it just took off. I stopped my car and jumped out but at first I couldn’t find him. Then I could see the tub had been thrown on to the other side of the fence. I couldn’t believe it, he was half-way down the tunnel..The back end of the car was on fire. Even his helmet was steaming. The marshals soon appeared and I helped them put out the fire. I didn’t really want to go in there but I had to. I feared the worst after what’s happened recently. He was unconscious when I got to him but he gradually came to. He was breathing heavily and obviously in pain. They put his legs in splints and carried him to the helicopter to be taken to hospital.” His legs were shattered, with kneecaps and thigh broken and he was on the sidelines for over a year. Despite his injuries, he said the loss of Ayrton Senna hurt him more; “I felt the loss we had far more than the pain in my knees. Ayrton had died, y’know? I had become close to Senna through Domingos, my manager, and I remember trying not to disturb him much. But he helped me where he could. We would go to dinner; we only raced together for eight races but Ayrton was special. He was really calm, he always knew exactly what he was doing. I wish I could have spent more time with him. I was really young, he was my idol, but I didn’t want to disrupt him. Then, after a few months, I’d lost him, so…”
He pushed hard to return afterwards, undergoing intense physical therapy, and options included the DTM. Towards the end of the year he had a test in a Sauber but he wasn’t physically prepared enough and it was too early. There was a pre-season test at Estoril with Tyrrell in March 1995 and a later test with Footwork at Silverstone but a deal was eventually struck to race for Minardi in the second half of the season, replacing Pierluigi Martini. There were retirements in Italy and Portugal, ninth places in Hungary and the European GP at the Nurburgring, tenth in Belgium, thirteenth at Aida and eleventh at Fuji and he scored the team’s only point of the season in Adelaide with a sixth place result. He stayed with them for 1996 but the team were struggling financially and it proved a disappointing time, with retirements in half the races and of the eight completed he was ninth at Imola, tenth in Brazil and Belgium, twelfth at Nurburgring, Magny Cours, Hockenheim and Suzuka and sixteenth in Portugal.
Pedro moved away from F1 and into the FIA GT Championship where he raced Schubel’s 911 GT1 (alongside Bob Wollek, Armin Hahne, Patrice Goueslard and Max Angelelli) and finished sixth at Hockenheim, seventh at Silverstone and fifth (third in class) at Le Mans and was tenth with Yannick Dalmas and Allan McNish with Porsche AG’s 911 GTR at Suzuka. A year later he teamed with Olivier Beretta in Oreca’s Viper GTS-R and they took the title, scoring eight wins and two second places in GT2, including Le Mans. However things would get worse at the following year’s Le Mans, when he returned as part of the works Mercedes squad, teamed with Franck Lagorce and Bernd Schneider in one of the team’s CLKs. However, the cars suffered three major crashes, during qualifying and the race itself, with the first befalling Mark Webber when he became airborne at Indianapolis during Thursday night qualifying. Despite modifications to cure the problem, on Saturday morning he again became airborne, landing on his roof and skidding to a stop in the Mulsanne corner. A few hours into the race, Peter Dumbreck also became airborne, flying off the side of the track and landing in the trees and the remaining CLK was immediately withdrawn. Mercedes cancelled the programme and transferred its drivers into DTM the following year though in 1999 he also contested three ALMS races in Price & Bscher’s BMW V12 LM and he and Thomas Bscher finished seventh, fifth and fourth at Sears Point, Portland and Nurburgring.
His two seasons in DTM came with Team Rosberg’s Mercedes, with his best result two fourth places at Nurburgring in 2000 but after four races into the following season he left the team. During the year he, Karl Wendlinger and Olivier Beretta finished fourth with a Chrysler LMP at Le Mans and racing Zakspeed’s Viper GTS-R he won the Nurburgring 24 Hours with Michael Bartels and Peter Zakowski. Staying with Zakspeed, he won the Nürburgring race again in 2002 plus took that year’s V8 Star Series crown and drove their car to fifth in the following year’s Spa 24 Hours with Kurt Mollekens and Didier de Radigues.
He drove four Le Mans Endurance Series races in 2004 with Larbre Competition’s Ferrari 550 Maranello, teamed with Christophe Bouchut and Steve Zacchia, and they won the GTS class. He was third (with K.Mollekens and Andy Prialux) in BMW Motorsport’s M3 E46 though the highlight came with victory at the 24 Hour Zolder event alongside Bert Longin, Anthony Kumpen and Mike Hezemans in GLPK Racing’s Viper.
After winning 2004’s LMES he was approached by George Howard-Chappell to race for Aston Martin and he entered several races but his season saw a busy schedule as he also continued with Larbre. His first race of the year with AMR came at Sebring alongside Stephane Sarrazzin and Peter Kox and of the races contested, despite retiring at Le Mans, there was a victory in the Tourist Trophy (with P.Kox) and a fifth in the Spa 24 Hours with P.Kox and Marc Goossens. He teamed with Gabriele Gardel in Larbre’s 550 for 500km races and they had victories at Monza, Brno and Cuba, second at Imola and Zuhai, fourth at Bahrein and fifth at Magny Cours. 2006 started in January at Interlagos with one race with Capuava Racing Team’s Merc CLK and he was second, alongside Tony Kanaan, Giuliano Losacco and Raul Boesel. His year was spent racing Aston Martin’s DBR9 (alongside drivers including S.Sarrazin, Jason Bright, G.Gardel, Vincent Vosse and Stephane Oretelli) with best results fourth at Sebring and Lime Rock. He raced a Porsche 997 GT2 (with Timo Bernhard and Marc Lieb) for Manthey Racing in the Spa 24 Hour plus took Racing Box’s Maserati MC12 to victory at Vallelunga with Piergiuseppe Perazzini and Marco Cioci. His racing with Aston Martin led to him signing as a factory driver with Peugeot, along with S.Sarrazin, and racing their 908 HDi FAP in the Le Mans Series they won at Valencia, Nurburgring and Spa plus took podiums at Monza and Interlagos. They were joined by Sebastien Bourdais for Le Mans and finished second while switching to Vitaphone Racing’s Maserati MC12 there was a second place in the Spa 24 Hours with Eric van de Poele, Michael Bartels and Thomas Biagi.
He raced a variety of cars in 2008 and alongside victories in the 908 at Monza and Nurburgring with S.Sarrazin there were drives in a Larbre Saleen S7-R at a Spa test plus a Ferrari 550 and F430 at Zolder, Magny Cours and Portugal. The next season was not as successful a year, with his highest scores fourth in a Dallara at Daytona (with Wayne Taylor, Max Angelelli and Brian Frisselle) and second with the 908 with Nicolas Minassian at Petit Le Mans. In 2010, driving for BMW Motorsport he won the Nurburgring 24 Hours for the fifth time plus with the 908 (alongside S.Bourdauis, Simon Pagenaud, N.Minassian, Franck Montagny and S.Sarrazin) took wins at Spa and Petit Le Mans plus was second at Sebring. There were only two podiums in 2011, one coming at Sebring though he came close again at Le Mans with a second place result with S.Pagenaud, S.Bordais, F.Montagny and S.Sarazzin. With no LMP1 drive for 2012, he raced a BMW Z4 in the Nurburgring 24 Hours event plus a McLaren MP4-12C in the Spa 24 Hours. The year saw his first races in Larbre’s Chevrolet Corvette C6.R in the World Endurance Championship and despite being sidelined by a gearbox problem in the Sebring 12 Hours they went on to win the GTE Am class at Le Mans, Fuji and Shanghai.
There was a full schedule in 2013 with the Corvette plus a works Aston Martin Vantage drive and he finished as GTE-Am class runner-up up in the following year’s WEC with Christoffer Nygaard and Paul Dalla Lana. He was third in class for the next two seasons and he and P.Dalla Lana were joined by Mathias Lauda for 2017’s World Endurance Championship. In his fifth season with the team his Vantage won GTE-Am at Silverstone, Austin, Shanghai and Bahrain and they took the class title. Their only GTE-Am victory of 2018/19’s WEC came at the opening round at Spa-Francorchamps while other marques raced during this period included a Ferrari 488 at Daytona, Sebring and Bathurst plus an Audi R8 LMS at Bathurst.
He returned to Daytona in 2020 with AMR to contest January’s 24 Hours event, alongside Ross Gunnn, Andrew Watson and Mathias Lauda in GTD, but they retired after a crash on lap 189. After a long, successful, career in motorsport, thoughts must turn to the future and possible racing, though Pedro said that when he decided to stop racing he would “enjoy my life. If my body is OK I’ll surf every day. It doesn’t matter where, I just like to surf.”
