Franck Fréon

Franck Fréon
Franck Fréon
	Franck Freon at Indianapolis Speedway in 1995
Nationality	French
Born	16 March 1962 (age 62); Paris (France)
Previous series
1986-87; 1988; 1989; 1990; 1991-93; 1994-95; 1995-97; 1996	French Formula Renault Turbo; German Formula 3; French Formula 3; International Formula 3000; Indy Lights; CART/Indycars; IMSA GT Championship; Japanese Formula 3

Franck Fréon (born 16 March 1962, in Paris) is a French race car driver.

He began his career in the French Renault 5 Turbo Championship in 1986 and 1987 then competed in French Formula Three from 1988 to 1989. In 1990 he competed in International Formula 3000 and failed to qualify for four of his first five race attempts, but was credited with 5th place in his first successful start although he did not finish the race. He subsequently left his team and joined another for the final two races of the year where he qualified but failed to point. His fifth place was good enough for 19th in the championship.

He moved to the United States and participated in Indy Lights from 1991 to 1993 capturing 4 wins and finishing runner up in both the 1992 and 1993 standings, behind Robbie Buhl and Bryan Herta respectively. However, he had trouble finding a good team in CART, making 4 starts (and 1 DNF) for 3 different teams in the 1994 season with a best finish of 12th in his CART debut at the Long Beach Grand Prix. 1995 wasn't much better as Fréon finished 15th in the Long Beach season opener, then failed to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 in a 3 year old Lola chassis and returned 5 months later only to fail to make the show at Laguna Seca Raceway.

Franck Fréon then ventured into endurance car racing, driving marginally competitive LMP vehicles in the 24 Hours of Le Mans from 1995 to 1999. He then signed onto the Chevrolet factory team to drive the Chevrolet Corvette C5-R. He teamed with Ron Fellows and Johnny O'Connell to win the 24 Hours of Daytona in 2001. He continued with the team until 2004.

Nearing his retirement, Franck Fréon leveraged his knowledge, experience and passion for cars to establish his business Pumpkin Fine Cars & Exotics in 1998.^[1]

Franck Freon with teammates Andy Pilgrim and Kelly Collins in Le Mans 2000
Franck Freon at Indianapolis Speedway in 1995

Career Results

Complete International Formula 3000 results

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

Year	Entrant	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	DC	Points
1990	Galaxy Racing	DON DNQ	SIL DNQ	PAU 5	JER DNQ	MNZ DNQ	PER	HOC	BRH	BIR			19th	2
1990	Apomatox										BUG 14	NOG 16	19th	2

Indy Lights

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	Rank	Points
1991	Fréon Racing Services	LBH 4	PHX 7	MIL 3	DET 2	POR 2	CLE 6	MEA 6	TOR 4	DEN 6	MDO 3	NAZ 9	LS 8	4th	121
1992	Landford Racing	PHX 11	LBH 1	DET 5	POR 1	MIL 4	LOU 2	TOR 12	CLE 1	VAN 4	MDO 6	NAZ 2	LS 3	2nd	159
1993	John Martin Racing	PHX 9	LBH 2	DET 18	POR 4	MIL 1	NHA 3	TOR 2	CLE 7	VAN 5	MDO 6	NAZ 3	LS 17	2nd	122

CART

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	Rank	Points	Ref
1994	Project Indy	SRF	PHX	LBH 12	INDY	MIL	DET	POR 15	CLE	TOR	MIS	MDO	NHM						32nd	1	^[2]
	Euromotorsport													VAN DNQ	ROA 29	NZR
	Indy Regency Racing																LS 18
1995	Project Indy	MIA	SRF	PHX	LBH 15	NZR													36th	0	^[3]
	Indy Regency Racing						INDY DNQ	MIL	DET	POR	ROA	TOR	CLE	MIS	MDO	NHM	VAN
	Payton/Coyne Racing																	LS DNQ

24 Hours of Le Mans

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
1994	Team Artnature	Yojiro Terada Pierre de Thoisy	Mazda RX-7 GTO	IMSA GTS	250	15th	2nd
1995	D.T.R. Mazdaspeed Co. Ltd.	Yojiro Terada Jim Downing	Kudzu DG-3-Mazda	WSC	282	7th	3rd
1996	Mazdaspeed Co. Ltd.	Yojiro Terada Jim Downing	Kudzu DLM-Mazda	LMP2	251	25th	1st
1997	Team T.D.R. Mazdaspeed	Yojiro Terada Jim Downing	Kudzu DLM-4-Mazda	LMP	263	17th	6th
1998	Courage Compétition	Yojiro Terada Olivier Thévenin	Courage C41-Porsche	LMP1	300	16th	4th
1999	Autoexe Motorsport	Yojiro Terada Robin Donovan	Autoexe LMP99-Ford	LMP	74	DNF	DNF
2000	Corvette Racing	Andy Pilgrim Kelly Collins	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	GTS	327	10th	3rd
2001	Corvette Racing	Andy Pilgrim Kelly Collins	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	GTS	271	14th	2nd
2002	Corvette Racing	Andy Pilgrim Kelly Collins	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	GTS	331	13th	2nd
2003	Corvette Racing	Ron Fellows Johnny O'Connell	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	GTS	326	12th	3rd