Gianmaria Bruni

Gianmaria "Gimmi" Bruni (born 30 May 1981) is an Italian Porsche factory auto racing driver who drove in the 2004 Formula One World Championship for Minardi. He is a GP2 Series race winner and is now racing in the FIA World Endurance Championship, in which he gained the 2013 and 2014 GT Drivers' Titles whilst driving as a factory Ferrari driver. He won the 2008 FIA GT Championship, 2011 Le Mans Series and 2012 International GT Open and took three class victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in 2008, 2012 and 2014. He also was successful at the 2009 and 2015 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, 2010 12 Hours of Sebring and 2011 Petit Le Mans.

Born in Rome, at the age of ten, Bruni lied about his age to the director of La Pista d'Oro, a go kart track in Italy, in order to begin an amateur karting career (twelve was the minimum age to compete). His first experience with racing cars was in the Italian Formula Renault Campus in 1997; he won the championship in 1998. For the following season, he moved on to the European Formula Renault Eurocup 2.0, taking another title. Then he entered the British Formula 3, where he came fifth in 2000 and fourth in 2001. After he had raced in various similar European series like the Euro Formula 3000, finishing third in 2003, he caught the attention of Minardi.

Bruni started testing for Minardi in 2003. However, the biggest struggle of his career was finding enough sponsorship to compete for them in Formula 1 in 2004.

In fact, Bruni did join Minardi for the 2004 Formula 1 season, though he struggled in a car which was considerably less developed than the rest of the grid. He was one of only two drivers to contest the majority of the season without scoring any points.

In 2005, Bruni competed in the GP2 Series, the single-seater Championship which is part of the Formula 1 support package and which is intended to be its feeder series. He won the first race at Barcelona and took second at Monaco, driving for Coloni. Bruni left the team in September before the Monza weekend. Joining up with Durango, he started on pole position at Spa-Francorchamps and finished tenth in the Drivers' Classification.

In 2006, Bruni competed again in the GP2 Series, this time with the new Trident Racing squad. He scored two victories, the first at Imola and the second at Hockenheim. At the end of the season, he was seventh in the Drivers' Classification.

For 2007, Bruni switched to sports car racing as he joined the FIA GT Championship with Team AF Corse Motorole in a Ferrari 430 GT3. He and his teammate Stéphane Ortelli finished the season second in the GT2 class with three wins.

After competing in the American Le Mans Series for Risi Competizione, Bruni shifted focus to Europe for 2011, teaming with Giancarlo Fisichella in an AF Corse Ferrari F458 Italia, winning the driver's and team's championship in the LM GTE Pro class of the Le Mans Series and helping win the team's championship in the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup. Bruni finished second at the Le Mans 24hrs and won the Petit Le Mans.

At the 2012 12 Hours of Sebring, Bruni disqualified his car by attempting to shunt off the BMW M3 GT of Joey Hand on the last lap to help the sister car of Olivier Beretta to win the overall grand touring classification, though the BMW was in a different class and the car would not have classified anyway because it did not make 70% of the race leader's distance.

In the 80th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2012, Bruni and the AF Corse Team scored first place in the GTE-Pro class along with his co-drivers Toni Vilander and Giancarlo Fisichella; their Ferrari 458 Italia covered a total of 336 laps (2,845.53 miles) of the Circuit de la Sarthe.

Bruni scored three wins and two second places at the 2013 FIA World Endurance Championship, so he won the GTE-Pro teams trophy and the GTE drivers and manufacturers cups.

In February 2017, Ferrari and Bruni announced that, by mutual consent, they had early terminated their relationship. After a collaboration that started in 2007, Bruni would leave Ferrari at the end of June of that year. He then signed a contract with Porsche.

As a result of the contract termination settlement, Bruni sat out the first half of the 2017 racing season, making his Porsche debut in July at Watkins Glen. In 2018, he raced for Porsche in the WEC, replacing Frédéric Makowiecki.

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

† Did not finish the race, but was classified as he had completed more than 90% of the race distance.

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

† Points only counted towards the Michelin Endurance Cup, and not the overall LMP2 Championship.

• Official website (Italian)