Photo : Arnaud CORNILLEAU - ACO/Nikon

 

Winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2010 with the Audi R15 TDI "Plus", Romain Dumas returns this year to LM P1 prototypes with the Porsche 919 Hybrid, after having won in the LM GTE Pro class last year.

Romain Dumas: "When I started to compete in single-seaters, I had a helmet decorated a certain way, but my parents always told me that there were so many colours on helmets that they could no longer tell who was who. So, for years, I had an all-white helmet! At that time, I didn't really have the necessary budget for helmet decoration. Once that got better, I always had my name written in blue because I love that colour. So my helmet became white and blue with a drawing that I still use today. When I joined Roger Penske's team in the American Le Mans Series in 2006, he made me change the colour of my helmet because he didn't like the white and the blue and those colours did  not go well with the team's Porsche RS Spyder's decorations: the white became metallic grey and the blue became red. Since then I have changed nothing and I have indeed won a lot of races with this helmet, namely the 12 Hours of Sebring in 2008 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2010. Now we see drivers' helmets a lot less since the new LM P1 prototypes are closed cockpit. Perhaps they should have a transparent roof…"

For more information about Romain Dumas go to his official website and Facebook.
For more stories about the Porsche saga at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, go to the official microsite Mission 2014 - Our Return.

Jean-Philippe Doret / ACO - Translation by Nikki Ehrhardt / ACO

Photo: LE MANS (SARTHE, FRANCE), CIRCUIT DES 24 HEURES, 24 HOURS OF LE MANS, SUNDAY JUNE 1 2014, TEST DAY. Romain Dumas shares the wheel of the No. 14 Porsche 919 Hybrid with the Swiss, Neel Jani and the German, Marc Lieb.