Nicolas Minassian jumps behind the wheel again in ELMS

Nicolas Minassian will be behind the wheel, when Round 3 and 4 of the European Le Mans Series will be run.

In two weeks’ time we will have Round 3 at Red Bull Ring, while the 4th round will be held at Paul Ricard on August 27th.

It is the DragonSpeed team, where the former Peugeot works driver is Sporting Director, who will give him his comeback.

Nicolas Minassian
Photo: JJ Media

Ryo Hirakawa has been part of the 3 driver line-up in the G-Drive sponsored #22 at the first 2 ELMS races and for the 24 Hours of Le Mans a month ago. But Hirakawa is a works driver at Toyota, and due to a date clash between the Super GT and the ELMS calendar, he has to go back to Japan for those two races. For the final two ELMS races of the year, the young Japanese driver will be a part of the team again.

44 year-old Minassian has driven Le Mans 17 times and the 2017 race was the first time in 16 years, where he wasn’t behind the wheel at the legendary race.

For the last three seasons he has been a part of the SMP Racing in LMP2, before he switched to the DragonSpeed team, and put the driving on pause for a short time. But he said himself that it wasn’t the end for him as a driver, and he still wanted to participate a few races here and there. He has already been a part of two 24 hour races in the 24H Series in a Mercedes-AMG GT3.

G-Drive Racing #22
Photo: JJ Media

Furthermore Nicolas Minassian has been appointed Sporting Director for the new Le Mans Legends Series, which will start later this year. So even though he has stopped as a full-time racing driver, he is still very busy with many jobs inside motorsport.

G-Drive Racing #22 are currently number in in the ELMS Team- and Drivers Championships, so even though Hirakawa has to miss out on a potential title, then Leo Roussel and Memo Rojas, and the team of course, have good chances to win the titles.

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