Gil de Ferran (born November 11, 1967 in Paris, France) is a French-born Brazilian professional racing driver and team owner. De Ferran was the 2000 and 2001 Champ Car champion driving for Team Penske and the winner of the 2003 Indianapolis 500. He also finished runner-up in the American Le Mans Series LMP1 class in 2012, with his own de Ferran Motorsports. Early career Inspired by the success of fellow Brazilian Emerson Fittipaldi, de Ferran began his career in kart racing in the early 1980s. He graduated to Formula Ford level in 1987 and Formula Three in 1991. Driving for Edenbridge Racing, De Ferran finished the 1991 British Formula Three season in third, only behind Rubens Barrichello and David Coulthard. For the 1992 season, De Ferran moved to Paul Stewart Racing and won the title, scoring seven wins in the process. 1993 and 1994 were spent driving for Paul Stewart Racing in International Formula 3000. De Ferran finished fourth in the series in 1993 and then took the championship down to the wire in 1994, ultimately finishing third. In 1993, De Ferran tested for a day the Footwork Arrows Formula One team along with Dutch racer Jos Verstappen. His day was seriously compromised after he bumped his head while walking nearby the motorhome, with de Ferran recalling the incident as follows: "I was walking between two of the trucks, looking down thinking, this is not going so well. And I hit my head on a swing-up locker door on the side of the truck. Split my head open, blood everywhere, game over." His times also compared poorly to Verstappen's. IndyCar At the end of 1994, de Ferran was invited to test a CART IndyCar by Hall/VDS Racing. Despite the worries of the team's sponsor Pennzoil that de Ferran was not a famous enough name for their car, the team was sufficiently impressed to offer de Ferran a drive for 1995. With no top-line Formula One drive available, de Ferran took up the offer to drive in America. De Ferran won the PPG Indy Car World Series Rookie Of The Year award in 1995 by finishing 14th. After dominating the Cleveland CART PPG Indy Car World Series race he would be taken out while trying to lap Scott Pruett. He would score his first win in the last race of the year at Laguna Seca Raceway. In 1996, de Ferran was