About Sam
Info:
Nationality: British
Age: 30-years old
Born: 09/01/80 Surrey, England
Lives: London, England
Family: Single
Hobbies: Skiing, guitar, running, triathlon
First race: Go-karts, Blackbushe, 1989
Career Highlights:
Aston Martin Racing Official Factory Driver
2004 Le Mans Series Champion, LMP2
4x Le Mans participations
Finished 3rd in 2008 Porsche Carrera Cup GB, 3 wins
Background
Sam Hancock is an official factory driver for Aston Martin Racing, co-owner of Jota Sport and founder of The Drivers Club private driver coaching service.
He is also a prominent media figure and as a freelance writer is one of very few journalists entrusted with extremely powerful or valuable cars for the purpose of track testing. Sam writes features for a variety of prominent publications including ‘Autosport’ and has appeared on television as a studio pundit for a number of motor sport programmes.
On the track Sam has enjoyed considerable success. He was the 2004 Le Mans Series Champion (LMP2) and is a veteran of four Le Mans 24hr participations spanning the LMP1, LMP2 and GT2 categories. Two of those occasions were in the capacity of factory driver for the prominent Courage Competition team. Most recently Sam has been a multiple race winner in the fiercely contested Porsche Carrera Cup GB, finishing 3rd overall in the series in 2008 with his own team, Jota Sport. Before moving into the world of sports cars, Sam forged a successful single-seater career, starting in karts at the age of eight and ascending through the ranks as high as the FIA Formula 3000 championship in which he competed as a member of the Jordan Grand Prix junior team.
Sam is also an avid and prominent racer of historic cars, with highlights including victory in the 2005 Goodwood Revival Meeting Whitsun Trophy, setting pole position and the overall fast lap of the entire meeting on his way to victory aboard a JCB-entered Ford GT40. He also finished 6th overall on his debut in the Goodwood Revival TT race aboard a lightweight Jaguar E-Type “4WPD”; and has taken class wins both at Goodwood and in the Le Mans Classic driving Neil Twyman-prepared Lotus XIs. Other notable historic cars raced, tested and developed by Sam also include: 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO, 1968 ex-Graham Hill Lotus 49 Formula One car, 1985 Lotus Renault 97T Formula One car (the car used by Ayrton Senna to claim his first grand prix victory), and many more!