nationality birth_date image article_title name
fra french 18 december 1969 christophetinseau.jpg christophe tinseau
 christophe tinseau
christophe tinseau

christophe tinseau -lrb- born 18 december 1969 -rrb- is a french racing driver from orléans .
tinseau began racing professionally in french formula renault in 1991 .
in 1992 he moved to french formula three and in 1993 he placed 4th in that championship with 2 wins and finished 10th in the macau grand prix .
in 1994 he was the championship runner-up in french f3 and in 1995 he moved up to formula 3000 where he finished 16th with 7 race starts .
in 1996 he improved to 6th in f3000 , winning the season-ending race at hockenheim .
in 1997 he raced in indy lights but only managed an 11th place championship finish , ending up on the podium once at circuit trois-rivières .
after the seeming decline in his open-wheel fortnes , tinseau moved to sports cars for 1998 driving a panoz esperante gtr-1 for dams , making his 24 hours of le mans debut .
in 1999 , still with dams he piloted a judd powered lola b98/10 for and won two races in the sports racing world cup .
from 2000 to 2002 he drove the historic cadillac northstar lmp at le mans , finishing 5th in class in 2001 .
he competed part-time in various series from 2003 to 2005 , but returned to full-time racing in 2006 when he finished 6th in porsche carrera cup france .
he made 6 le mans series starts and finished 6th at le mans for pescarolo sport in 2007 .
he continued with the team in 2008 and finished 7th at le mans and 8th in lms points and continued with the team in 2009 , finishing second in le mans series .
in 2010 he competed in the nascar whelen euro series , finishing eighth with one win .
in 2011 he returned to le mans series with pescarolo and finished fourth in the championship .
in 2012 he competed in a handful of major endurance races , and since then has been largely retired .
he has founded a racing school for ice racing .
