Winner of the 24 Hours in 1998, Stéphane Ortelli returns to Le Mans this weekend in the GT Tour, which has a stage on the Bugatti circuit.

Over its three entries in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Monegasque driver has had some great stories. The most important, of course in 1998, when he won in the Porsche 911 GT1. With his team mates Laurent Aiello and Allan McNish, he was consistently in the top three, but the car had a cooling problem on Sunday morning. With less than an hour and a half to go, the leading Toyota GT-One of Thierry Boutsen, Ralf Kelleners and Geoff Lees retired, and the 911 GT1 took the lead. It was the sixteenth victory (and still last to this day) of Porsche at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Thereafter, Stéphane Ortelli has been one of the pioneers of Le Mans saga, in an Audi R8 in 1999 and 2000 (in 2000 the winning trio of 1998, Aiello-McNish-Ortelli, finished second), and then Bentley EXP Speed ​​8 in 2001. For his return to endurance racing, it was with another British legend, Aston Martin, with a tenth place overall in 2006 in a DBR9 shared with Pedro Lamy and Stéphane Sarrazin. Stéphane Ortelli was also a pillar Oreca, including driving the Audi R8 entered by the French team in 2009 (finished fourth with Franck Montagny and Jean-Marc Gounon). It was also with Oreca we find him for the last time to 24 hours, with Bruno Senna and Tiago Monteiro. You can be sure that with his long history at Le Mans, Stephane Ortelli will be a public favourite in the GT Tour, this weekend on the Bugatti Circuit.