Raphael Matos (born August 28, 1981) is a Brazilian professional racing driver. He was the 2008 Firestone Indy Lights Series champion and the 2007 Champ Car Atlantic Series champion. He lives in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at th ...

Career highlights

Early career

Born in Belo Horizonte, Matos came to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

in 2002 after karting in Brazil and began competing in Skip Barber Formula Dodge, winning the championship in 2003. In 2004, he moved up to the

Star Mazda Series The USF Pro 2000 Championship Presented by Cooper Tires, formerly known as the Star Mazda Championship, Pro Mazda Championship, and later Indy Pro 2000 Championship, is an open-wheel racing series serving as the third step on the Road to Indy l ...

and in 2005 he won the Star Mazda championship. In 2006 he moved up the

Champ Car Atlantic Championship The Atlantic Championship is a formula race car series with races throughout North America. It has been called Champ Car Atlantics (after its former name), Toyota Atlantics (due to the series' previous history of using Toyota-powered engines) ...

Series where he drove for the Sierra Sierra team and captured one victory on his way to 4th place in the points standings. He also competed in 4 Indy Pro Series races for Guthrie Racing and swept the two races held in March at St. Petersburg, Florida. During the fall he was named a driver for A1 Team Brazil in the

A1 Grand Prix A1 Grand Prix (A1GP) was a "single-make" open-wheel auto racing series that ran from 2005 until 2009. It was unique in its field in that competitors solely represented their nation as opposed to themselves or a team, the usual format in most fo ...

series and made his debut at the series' race in

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

in the 2006–2007 season. He raced a Lola B07/40-

Mazda , commonly referred to as simply Mazda, is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturer headquartered in Fuchū, Hiroshima (town), Fuchū, Hiroshima Prefecture, Hiroshima, Japan. In 2015, M ...

in the 2007 12 Hours of Sebring and the

2007 Petit Le Mans The 2007 Petit Le Mans was the eleventh round of the 2007 American Le Mans Series season and tenth running of the Petit Le Mans. It took place at Road Atlanta, Georgia on October 6, 2007. This race also marked the closest finish in Petit Le Mans ...

Atlantics championship and Indy Lights

Matos continued with the Sierra Sierra team in Atlantics in 2007 and clinched the championship with several races remaining in the season, securing for himself the $2 million "scholarship" for a ride in

Champ Car Champ Car World Series (CCWS) was the series sanctioned by Open-Wheel Racing Series Inc., or Champ Car, a sanctioning body for American open-wheel car racing that operated from 2004 to 2008. It was the successor to Championship Auto Racing Team ...

for the 2008 season. However, Matos decided to pass on the scholarship and sign with Andretti Green Racing to drive in the

Indy Racing League The IndyCar Series, currently known as the NTT IndyCar Series under sponsor (commercial), sponsorship, is the highest class of regional North American American open-wheel car racing, open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars in the United S ...

's Firestone Indy Lights Series in 2008, where he won the series championship. Prior to the 2008 Indy Lights season, he drove a

Mazda RX-8 The Mazda RX-8 is a sports car manufactured by Japanese automobile manufacturer Mazda between 2002 and 2012. It was first shown in 2001 at the North American International Auto Show#2001, North American International Auto Show. It is the success ...

for the SpeedSource team in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, taking first in the GT class and a 9th place overall finish, sharing the car with Nick Ham, David Haskell and Sylvain Tremblay. After the season, he drove for Michael Shank Racing on the winning team in the DP class (with Ian James and John Pew) at the SunRichGourmet.com 1000 at

Miller Motorsports Park Utah Motorsports Campus is a race track facility located in Grantsville near Tooele, Utah, United States. It operated under the name of Miller Motorsports Park from 2006 until October 2015. The course has hosted auto, motorcycle, bicycle and k ...

IndyCar Series

Matos competed in the full 2009 IndyCar Series season for Luczo-Dragon Racing. He qualified third in his second race, the

Long Beach Grand Prix The Grand Prix of Long Beach (known as Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach since 2019 for naming rights reasons) is an IndyCar Series race held on a street circuit in downtown Long Beach, California. Christopher Pook is the founder of the event. It wa ...

and finished eight. He was the fastest rookie qualifier in his first Indy 500 and ran in the lead pack, but had a crash with Vítor Meira in which Meira was injured. Matos finished 22nd. Matos captured seasonal Rookie of the Year honors by a wide margin over former F1 driver Robert Doornbos. Matos' best finish was 6th at the Milwaukee Mile. He was running at the finish of each of the last ten races of the season, consistency that led to 13th in the championship despite few top ten finishes. Raphael qualified 12th in both the 2009 and 2010 Indy 500 and he also crashed in both races in roughly the same location at the exit of turn 1. He failed to qualify the AFS entry for the 2011 Indianapolis 500. He was also the fastest Rookie during the 2009 Indy 500 qualifying.

Post-Indy career

Matos returned to his native Brazil, racing in the Stock Car Brasil series; at the end of the 2015 season, he received a two-year suspension for failing a

drug test A drug test is a technical analysis of a biological specimen, for example urine, hair, blood, breath, sweat, or oral fluid/saliva—to determine the presence or absence of specified parent drugs or their metabolites. Major applications of d ...

. He has since raced in the

Trans-Am Series The Trans-Am Series is a sports car racing series held in North America. Founded in 1966, it is sanctioned by the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA). Primarily based in the United States, the series competes on a variety of track types includi ...

in the United States.

Motorsports career results

American Le Mans Series

A1 Grand Prix

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

American open–wheel racing

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

Atlantic Championship

Indy Lights

IndyCar Series

Indianapolis 500

Stock Car Brasil

† Ineligible for championship points. * Season still in progress

References

External links

* *
IndyCar Driver Page

Champ Car Atlantic Series bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Matos, Raphael Living people 1981 births Sportspeople from Belo Horizonte Brazilian racing drivers Stock Car Brasil drivers Indianapolis 500 drivers 24 Hours of Daytona drivers IndyCar Series drivers Indy Lights champions Indy Lights drivers Brazilian IndyCar Series drivers Atlantic Championship drivers Indy Pro 2000 Championship drivers A1 Team Brazil drivers American Le Mans Series drivers Rolex Sports Car Series drivers Brazilian WeatherTech SportsCar Championship drivers Trans-Am Series drivers Dragon Racing drivers A1 Grand Prix drivers Andretti Autosport drivers AFS Racing drivers De Ferran Motorsports drivers Level 5 Motorsports drivers Starworks Motorsport drivers Meyer Shank Racing drivers Charouz Racing System drivers