From soap box racers and Formula Renault to a record-setting run of European Le Mans Series titles and a 2025 class win at Le Mans.
Louis Deletraz is a Swiss racing driver born on 22 April 1997. He won the 2015 Formula Renault NEC title, raced Formula One as a test and simulator driver, and built his reputation in sports cars, winning four European Le Mans Series titles and the 2025 Le Mans Pro-Am class.
Louis Deletraz is a Swiss sports car driver who built his reputation in the European Le Mans Series and the IMSA SportsCar Championship. He became a record-setting four-time European Le Mans Series champion and won the LMP2 Pro-Am class at the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans. His father, Jean-Denis Deletraz, raced in Formula One and won a class at Le Mans, and his own route to the top ran through soap box racers, karts and open-wheel cars.
Where did Deletraz's racing career begin?
Deletraz was introduced to motorsport by his father, who would not let him race karts competitively until he turned ten. The two built soap box racers together in the years before his karting career began.
He began karting in his native Switzerland in 2008 and won the Vega Trofeo Super Mini class the following year. Third-place finishes in the KF3 Bridgestone Cup Switzerland and the Vega Trofeo Junior categories followed in 2010, and he won the Vega Trofeo Junior championship in 2011.
From soap box racers to a Le Mans class win, a career built on bold overtakes and four European titles.
How did his single-seater career develop?
Deletraz entered single-seaters in 2012 in the Formula BMW Talent Cup. At the Grand Final he started all three races from pole and won the second of them, but he later collided with fellow Swiss driver Ralph Boschung, and a pit lane incident after the race led to his exclusion from the event.
In 2013 he moved up to the Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup with Josef Kaufmann Racing and finished 19th in the championship, with a best result of fifth at Silverstone. He stayed with the team in 2014 and won the opening race at Monza. He finished the season as runner-up, sixteen points behind Ben Barnicoat of Fortec Motorsports, after the finale at the Nurburgring was cancelled.
The 2015 season brought the title. Deletraz won the Northern European Cup while running a dual campaign in the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0, where he took three victories and narrowly lost the championship to Jack Aitken. That year he also joined the BMW Motorsport Junior Programme and raced three rounds of the VLN series at the Nurburgring for the manufacturer.
He made his Formula Renault 3.5 debut at the Red Bull Ring in 2015 with Comtec Racing. In 2016 he moved to the series full time with Fortec, mentored by Formula One driver Romain Grosjean. He won the season opener at Aragon and a later round at Le Castellet, but a long title battle with Tom Dillmann ended with Deletraz seven points behind him after a late-season penalty and a poor start to the decider.
How did his GP2 and Formula 2 years go?
Deletraz went through several Formula 2 teams between 2016 and 2020 without a title push. He made his GP2 debut at the final round of 2016 with Carlin and finished 26th, without points. He then signed with Racing Engineering for 2017 and switched to Rapax mid-season, finishing 17th.
In 2018 he partnered Antonio Fuoco at Charouz Racing System and ended up tenth. Moving to reigning teams champion Carlin in 2019 alongside Nobuharu Matsushita, he finished eighth with a best result of second in both the Monaco and Silverstone sprint races. His final Formula 2 season, in 2020, returned him to Charouz alongside Pedro Piquet, where he scored five podiums and ended eighth overall.
Did Deletraz race in Formula One?
Deletraz never raced a full Formula One season. He was confirmed in Renault's young driver programme in 2016, took part in the Haas young driver test in Abu Dhabi in November 2018, and then worked for Haas as a simulator driver and later as reserve and development driver.
At that Abu Dhabi test he completed 117 laps on the second day. In May 2019 Haas named him simulator driver for the rest of that season, and he continued as reserve and development driver for 2020. When Romain Grosjean crashed at the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix, Haas chose Pietro Fittipaldi, who had more Formula One mileage, to step in.
Deletraz criticised that decision on social media, and team principal Guenther Steiner brushed the criticism aside. Haas did not keep him on as a development driver for 2021.
When did his sports car career begin?
His endurance career started in 2020, when he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual with Rebellion Williams eSports in the LMP category. That same year he raced the real 24 Hours of Le Mans with Rebellion Racing alongside Nathanael Berthon and Romain Dumas in LMP1, and the team finished fourth after he brushed the wall at the Indianapolis corner.
In 2021 he joined Team WRT in the European Le Mans Series LMP2 class, alongside Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye. The trio won three races, took a second place and clinched the LMP2 title. He also finished sixth at the 8 Hours of Portimao in the FIA World Endurance Championship. At Le Mans that year the car was leading with one lap to go, with Ye at the wheel, when a broken throttle sensor caused an electrical short and forced the retirement.
| Season | Series or event | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual | Overall win with Rebellion Williams eSports |
| 2020 | 24 Hours of Le Mans | Fourth for Rebellion Racing in LMP1 |
| 2021 | European Le Mans Series, LMP2 | Team WRT drivers' title, with three wins |
| 2022 | European Le Mans Series, LMP2 | Second title with Ferdinand Habsburg, four wins |
| 2022 | FIA World Endurance Championship | Fifth in the LMP2 championship with Prema Orlen |
| 2023 | FIA World Endurance Championship, LMP2 | Final LMP2 title of the WEC era with WRT |
| 2024 | IMSA SportsCar Championship | Sebring win with Wayne Taylor Racing |
| 2024 | European Le Mans Series, LMP2 | Third title with AO by TF |
| 2025 | European Le Mans Series, LMP2 Pro-Am | Title, his fourth in five seasons |
How did he win his European Le Mans Series titles?
Deletraz won the European Le Mans Series LMP2 driver title in 2021 with Team WRT, and he defended it in 2022 with Prema Racing and Ferdinand Habsburg. That season the pair took four wins and a third place at Spa, and the title came with four wins over the season.
The 2022 season was also busy in the United States. He drove an LMP2 car for Tower Motorsport in the IMSA SportsCar Championship and lost out on the 24 Hours of Daytona after heavy fuel saving dropped him to third. At Road America a similar fuel strategy let Ryan Dalziel pass him late. Two wins at Laguna Seca and Petit Le Mans then helped his teammate John Farano take the drivers' title, while Deletraz, who missed a round, finished seventh.
What did his 2023 and 2024 seasons look like?
In 2023 he joined Wayne Taylor Racing as a third driver in the Acura ARX-06 GTP, alongside mentor Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor. At the 24 Hours of Daytona that year he finished second, 4.190 seconds behind the Meyer Shank Racing entry. The team missed the title after contact in the final race at Road Atlanta, where Deletraz qualified the No. 10 Acura on pole, his first pole in endurance racing.
Alongside those commitments he drove for Team WRT in the WEC, partnering Kubica and Rui Andrade. The trio won at Spa and moved on to the LMP2 title, the final one of the WEC era. In the European series he drove for Racing Team Turkey in the Pro-Am class and finished third overall. At the end of 2023 the Swiss federation gave him its Auto Sport Schweiz Award for special services to Swiss motorsport.
In 2024 he raced full time in IMSA with Jordan Taylor, with Colton Herta joining for the endurance rounds. At Daytona he held off Mathieu Jaminet to finish third. At Sebring he made a winning move on Sebastien Bourdais with five minutes left, giving Wayne Taylor Racing its first win of the GTP era. That year he also took the European title with AO by TF, winning at Spa and finishing second in the Portimao finale.
What was 2025 like for Deletraz?
In 2025 Wayne Taylor Racing moved to the Cadillac V-Series.R, and Deletraz remained in the No. 40 car with Taylor. Kamui Kobayashi joined for Daytona, and the car led in the evening until a spin at the turn 2 barrier during the eighth hour. Another crash, caused by Brendon Hartley, removed the team from contention at Sebring. The pair finished second at Watkins Glen and ninth in the teams standings.
Back in the European series he returned to AO by TF in the Pro-Am class with Hyett and Dane Cameron. The team won the Pro-Am subclass at Le Mans and then claimed its first ELMS victory of the season at Imola. At Silverstone a five-second penalty dropped him to second after a close battle in the rain. The team still won the Pro-Am title at Portimao, extending his run to four ELMS titles in five seasons.
What is his driving style like?
Deletraz is known for bold, aggressive overtaking in high-pressure moments. His pass for the win on Neel Jani at the 2023 4 Hours of Barcelona and his move on Bourdais at Sebring in 2024 are the clearest examples. In 2019 he went after Anthoine Hubert on the last lap of a Monaco F2 sprint race and lost by less than a tenth of a second.
Team owner Wayne Taylor described him as very mature before his first top-class endurance season in IMSA. That maturity was on show in the 2022 European season finale, when he was handed the car with a dominant lead and told to consolidate without crashing.
