Allan Simonsen (racing driver)

After beginning his career in karting racing against the likes of future Formula One World Champion Kimi Räikkönen, Simonsen moved to cars in 1999, winning the Danish Formula Ford Championship. He raced in Formula Palmer Audi in 2000, before moving to German Formula 3 and Formula Renault 2.0 UK in 2001.^[6]

Simonsen moved to sports car racing for 2002, driving a Ferrari 360 for Veloqx Motorsport in the British GT Championship. He began racing in Australia in 2003 for Mark Coffey Racing, driving a Ferrari 360 Challenge to eighth place in the 2003 Australian Nations Cup Championship for GT style cars and second place in Group 2. He would then go on to finish in eighth place in the 2003 Bathurst 24 Hour driving a Lamborghini Diablo GTR. In the 2004 Australian Nations Cup Championship, he drove the 360 to third place in the Trophy Class while driving a V12 powered 550 Millennio in a limited campaign to seventh in the outright class.

While in Australia, Simonsen also drove in the Sandown 500 and Bathurst 1000 V8 Supercar events. Simonsen's best Bathurst result came in 2011, when he finished third for Kelly Racing, driving alongside Greg Murphy in a Holden Commodore VE.^[7] Simonsen won the Australian GT Championship in 2007 (driving both a Ferrari 360 GT and a Ferrari F430) and finished second in 2008 driving a Ferrari F430 GT.

At the 2011 Sprint Bathurst event, Simonsen set a blistering time of 2:04.95 around the famous Mount Panorama circuit. This was a monumental effort at the time, as it was a full two seconds faster than any V8 Supercar lap time and comparable to the Formula 3 lap record set in the following year.^[8][9] Simonsen's time was so quick that the officials initially removed it from the timing screens, for they believed it to be an error. It wasn't until it was confirmed by the manual time keeper and the team's own data, however, that the time was reinstated.^[10]

Simonsen placed fourth in the 2007 Le Mans Series season, in a partial season driving a Porsche 911 GT3 for Virgo Motorsport, which included a GT2 class win in the Nürburgring 1000.^[11] He drove Ferraris for Team Farnbacher in both the Le Mans Series as well as various international series from 2008 through 2011. During that time, Simonson won the GT2 class at the 2009 1000 km of Okayama with Dominik Farnbacher and the SP7 class in the 2010 24 Hours Nürburgring with Farnbacher, Leh Keen, and Marco Seefried. He participated in the 24 Hours of Le Mans seven times between 2007 and 2013, finishing on the GT2 class podium twice: third in 2007 and second in 2010.

In the ninth minute of the 2013 24 Hours of Le Mans,^[12] and on his third lap,^[13] Simonsen was leading the LMGTE Am field with his No. 95 Aston Martin Vantage GTE.^[14] At the Tertre Rouge corner, Simonsen's car twitched as he accelerated through the right hand turn,^[14] and when he attempted to correct,^[14][15] the car veered left before impacting the crash barriers on the outside of the corner.^[4][5] He was extricated from the car, reportedly conscious,^[16] before being taken to the on-site medical centre where he succumbed to his injuries.^[17] His death was the first in racing conditions during the 24 Hours of Le Mans since Jo Gartner died in a 1986 crash, while French driver Sébastien Enjolras died more recently in a pre-qualifying session accident in 1997.^[17][18]

Race officials raised a Danish flag at half mast over the circuit's podium during the race in honor of Simonsen. Fellow Danish driver Tom Kristensen won the race overall and dedicated his team's victory to the memory of Simonsen.^[19]

The award for the fastest qualifier at the Bathurst 12 Hour, which Simonsen won in 2013, is named the Allan Simonsen Pole Position Trophy.^[20]

Year	Pole winner	Team	Car	Time
2014	Maro Engel	Erebus Motorsport	Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG	2m 03.8586 sec
2015	Laurens Vanthoor	Phoenix Racing	Audi R8 LMS Ultra	2m 02.5521 sec
2016	Shane van Gisbergen	Tekno Autosports	McLaren 650S GT3	2m 01.2860 sec
2017	Toni Vilander	Maranello Motorsport	Ferrari 488 GT3	2m 02.8610 sec
2018	Chaz Mostert	Schnitzer Motorsport	BMW M6 GT3	2m 01.9340 sec
2019	Raffaele Marciello	Mercedes-AMG Team Mann Filter GruppeM Racing	Mercedes-AMG GT3	2m 02.9348 sec
2020	Matt Campbell	Absolute Racing	Porsche 911 GT3 R	2m 03.5554 sec
2021	No race due to Covid-19 pandemic
2022	Chaz Mostert	CoinSpot Racing Team	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	2m 02.4930 sec
2023	Maro Engel	Mercedes-AMG GruppeM Racing	Mercedes-AMG GT3	2m 00.8819 sec
2024	Sheldon van der Linde	Team WRT	BMW M4 GT3	2m 01.9810 sec
2025	Lucas Auer	Mercedes-AMG GruppeM Racing	Mercedes-AMG GT3	2m 01.2760 sec
2026	Cam Waters	Scott Taylor Motorsport	Mercedes-AMG GT3	2m 01.0790 sec