Jann Mardenborough (born 9 September 1991) is a British professional racing driver competing in the Japanese Super GT series. In 2011 he became the third (and youngest) winner of the

GT Academy GT Academy (also known as Nissan PlayStation GT Academy and NISMO PlayStation GT Academy as part of the Nissan partnership) was a television programme run by Nissan and Sony Interactive Entertainment, which provided an alternative route into re ...

competition, beating 90,000 entrants. He was rewarded with a drive for Nissan at the

Dubai 24 Hour The Dubai 24 Hour Race is both a Sports car racing, sports car and Touring car racing, touring car automobile endurance race held annually at the Dubai Autodrome. It was inaugurated in 2006. Entrants and participants As with all races in the 24 ...

race. Subsequently, he competed in the F3 European Championship and the

GP3 Series The GP3 Series, or GP3 for short, was a single-seater motor racing series launched in 2010 as a feeder series for the GP2 Series, introduced by GP2 organiser Bruno Michel. GP3 followed the entire European leg of the Formula One series and th ...

, winning a race in Hockenheim. He also competed in the

24 Hours of Le Mans The 24 Hours of Le Mans (french: link=no, 24 Heures du Mans) is an endurance-focused sports car race held annually near the town of Le Mans, France. It is the world's oldest active endurance racing event. Unlike fixed-distance races whose ...

, finishing third in the LMP2 class on his debut in

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...

. He competed for Nissan Motorsports in the

2015 FIA World Endurance Championship The 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship season was the fourth season of the FIA World Endurance Championship auto racing series, co-organized by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO). ...

, but the team withdrew from the series after one race due to a very uncompetitive car. Since then, he has raced in Japan in the Super GT and Super Formula championships. In

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses duri ...

, he won a race and was in championship contention in the GT300 class of Super GT. Then in

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a s ...

, he joined the GT500 class where he still competes in

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

, and has scored a podium.

was his only season in Super Formula, where he scored a pole position.

Personal life

Mardenborough, born in Darlington, is the son of English footballer Steve Mardenborough. He spent most of his childhood growing up in

Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...

Career

Mardenborough had not seriously raced prior to entering

. Mardenborough's rise is unusual because up until 2011 at the age of 19 he had never seriously competed in motorsport. In 2011 Mardenborough participated in the GT Academy; he beat 90,000 other entrants and won the competition, and the prize for his victory was a drive with Nissan at the

. He scored third in his class. In 2012 Mardenborough competed in the British GT Championship. Together with

Alex Buncombe Alex Buncombe (born 28 August 1981 in Taunton, England) is a British racing driver, recently left RJN Motorsport after the Blancpain Endurance Series. He is a part of the Nismo Global Driver Exchange, working with Nissan and RJN Motorsport to p ...

he won a race and ended the season in sixth place in the GT3 championship. Moreover, he took part in four rounds of the

Blancpain Endurance Series The GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup, formerly for sponsorship reasons the Blancpain Endurance Series from 2011 to 2015 and Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup from 2016 to 2019, is a sports car racing series developed by SRO Motorsports Gr ...

Jann Mardenborough Arden International Silverstone 2014 GP3

In 2013 Mardenborough switched to

formula racing Formula racing (known as open-wheel racing in North America) is any of several forms of open-wheeled single-seater motorsport. The origin of the term lies in the nomenclature that was adopted by the FIA for all of its post-World War II single ...

. At the beginning of the year Mardenborough started in the 2013 season of the

Toyota Racing Series The Formula Regional Oceania Championship is New Zealand's premier formula racing category. The series includes races for every major trophy in New Zealand circuit racing including the New Zealand Motor Cup and the Denny Hulme Memorial Trophy. ...

in New Zealand. He was the best placed rookie and finished the season in the tenth place in the championship. After that he returned to Europe and secured a seat with

Carlin Motorsport Carlin, formerly Carlin Motorsport, is a motor racing team based in the United Kingdom. It currently competes in five championships: FIA Formula 2 Championship, FIA Formula 3 Championship, F4 British Championship, BRDC British Formula 3 and ...

in the

campaign of the

FIA European Formula Three Championship The FIA Formula 3 European Championship was a European Formula Three(F3) auto racing competition, organised by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). After one season of the FIA Formula 3 International Trophy, the FIA revived t ...

, as well as the

British Formula 3 Championship The British Formula Three Championship was an international motor racing series that took place primarily in the United Kingdom with a small number of events in mainland Europe. It was a junior-level feeder formula that used small single seat ...

. After one season in F3 Mardenborough joined

Arden International Arden International is a multiple formula racing team created and run by Christian Horner and Garry Horner. It currently runs teams in the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 and F4 British Championship, and formerly ran in the FIA Formula 2 Championship ...

to compete in the

2014 GP3 Series season The 2014 GP3 Series was the fifth season of the third-tier of Formula One feeder championship and also fifth season under the moniker of GP3 Series, a motorsport, motor racing feeder series for Formula One and sister series GP2 Series, GP2. The se ...

, and was also signed by the

Red Bull Junior Team The Red Bull Junior Team is a driver development program run by the energy drink company Red Bull GmbH in an attempt to identify potential future racing stars in open wheel racing. The similar Red Bull Driver Search, now ended, was an American ...

driver development programme. He won his first GP3 race in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

after a reverse grid pole position in the sprint race and setting the fastest lap. At the 2014

Goodwood Festival of Speed The Goodwood Festival of Speed is an annual motorsports festival featuring modern and historic motor racing vehicles taking part in a hill climb and other events, held in the grounds of Goodwood House, West Sussex, England, in late June or ...

, Mardenborough set the fastest ever

Supercar A supercar – also called exotic car – is a loosely defined description of street-legal, high-performance sports cars. Since the 2010s, the term hypercar has come into use for the highest performing supercars. Supercars commonly serve as t ...

time up the famous "Goodwood Hill" whilst piloting the

Nismo , abbreviated as Nismo, is a division of Nissan Motorsports & Customizing focused in motorsport and performance-oriented car models for Nissan. Nismo was initially a company, , formed in 1984 as a result of a merger of two motorsport departmen ...

Nissan GT-R The Nissan GT-R (Japanese: 日産・GT-R, ''Nissan GT-R''), is a high-performance sports car and grand tourer produced by Nissan, unveiled in 2007. It is the successor to the Skyline GT-R, a high performance variant of the Nissan Skyline. Alt ...

with the optional ‘Time Attack’ package. Mardenborough also continued racing in GP3, switching to Carlin for the 2015 season. On 28 March 2015, his GT3-class Nissan GT-R Nismo caught air at the Flugplatz section of the

Nürburgring Nordschleife The is a 150,000 person capacity motorsports complex located in the town of Nürburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It features a Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a long "North loop" track, built in the 1920s, around the village a ...

. It cartwheeled over the fence into spectators. One person was killed, while Mardenborough was not seriously injured. Mardenborough's achievements and growing global profile led to Sports Pro Media naming him on their list of the 50 most marketable athletes in the world. From 2017, Mardenborough raced in the Super Formula Series in Japan with

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

. From 2017 to 2018, Mardenborough competed for

Team Impul Hoshino Impul Co., Ltd., (known as Impul) is a Japanese automotive aftermarket company based in Setagaya-ku, Tokyo. Founded by Nissan's factory driver, Kazuyoshi Hoshino, the company exclusively produces aftermarket parts for Nissans, such as bod ...

in Super GT. In 2019, he raced for Kondō Racing.

Racing record

Career summary

Complete British GT Championship results

Complete FIA Formula 3 European Championship results

( key)

24 Hours of Le Mans

Complete GP3 Series results

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

Complete WeatherTech SportsCar Championship results

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

Complete FIA World Endurance Championship results

Complete GP2 Series results

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

Complete Macau Grand Prix results

Complete Super GT results

( key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap) ^‡ Half points awarded as less than 75% of race distance was completed.

Complete Super Formula Results

(Races in bold indicate pole position)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mardenborough, Jann 1991 births Living people Sportspeople from Darlington English racing drivers Toyota Racing Series drivers FIA Formula 3 European Championship drivers British Formula Three Championship drivers Blancpain Endurance Series drivers 24 Hours of Le Mans drivers FIA World Endurance Championship drivers WeatherTech SportsCar Championship drivers GP3 Series drivers GP2 Series drivers 24 Hours of Spa drivers GT Academy participants Welsh racing drivers People educated at Radyr Comprehensive School Super Formula drivers Britcar 24-hour drivers 24H Series drivers Arden International drivers Carlin racing drivers Nismo drivers Kelly Racing drivers OAK Racing drivers Kondō Racing drivers Greaves Motorsport drivers GT4 European Series drivers