Juan Barazi
Juan Barazi (born 22 January 1968 in Copenhagen) is a Danish racing driver and businessman. The Swiss-educated lawyer is the scion of an ancient Syrian-Kurdish noble family.
Juan Barazi | |||||||||
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Nationality | Danish | ||||||||
Born | 22 January 1968 53) Copenhagen, Denmark | (age||||||||
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Barazi's business activities have been focussed around Angola, where he has been involved in mining. He has been a long term advisor and fixer to Isabel dos Santos [1], who helped him to gain lucrative business opportunities in Angola. In 2020 Barazi was linked to the Luanda Leaks controversy as a result of documents disclosed in the leak showing evidence of multiple accounts and shell companies Barazi opened in Santos name [2]. He lives in Dubai with his wife and children.
Barazi entered motorsport through his extensive classic car collection which includes an Aston Martin DB3S, Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato, a Ferrari 250LM, a Ferrari 246 Sport Dino and a Porsche 917. He often races his cars and has twice won the hotly contested Goodwood Revival Tourist Trophy in his 1962 Jaguar Lightweight Competition E-Type as well as several other international races.
Barazi competed in British Formula Ford 1600 in 1999, finishing second in 2000. Barazi started competing in Radical one-make series in 2001, becoming vice-champion of the British Enduro series in 2004. He was also the champion of the Classic Endurance Racing series in his Porsche 917. He also competed in the Le Mans Series in a Porsche 911 GT3 RSR as well as five seasons in the LMP2 category. He won the Le Mans Series LMP2 Championship outright in 2006 and has placed top five during three further seasons.
In 2005, he made his debut at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, driving an LMP2 Courage C65. He then purchased the car and set up his own team, Barazi-Epsilon, with Michel Lecomte. In 2006, the team began competing in the Le Mans Series and at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The team won the LMP2 category of the Le Mans Series. In 2007, the team switched to a Zytek 07S. Barazi and his team competed at Le Mans every year up to and including 2009.
For the 2010 24 Hours of Le Mans, Barazi raced for Aston Martin Racing in the LMP1 category in one of their Lola-Aston Martin B09/60s, alongside Darren Turner and Sam Hancock.[3] The trio retired with a blown engine at 40 mins before the end of the race when running fourth overall and first petrol car on the grid.
24 Hours of Le Mans results
Year | Team | Co-drivers | Car | Class | Laps | Pos. | Class pos. |
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2005 | Intersport Racing Cirtek Motorsport |
Sergey Zlobin Bastien Brière |
Courage C65-AER | LMP2 | 30 | DNF | DNF |
2006 | Barazi-Epsilon | Michael Vergers Neil Cunningham |
Courage C65-AER | LMP2 | 294 | 21st | 6th |
2007 | Barazi-Epsilon | Michael Vergers Karim Ojjeh |
Zytek 07S/2 | LMP2 | 252 | DNF | DNF |
2008 | Barazi-Epsilon | Michael Vergers Stuart Moseley |
Zytek 07S/2 | LMP2 | 304 | 29th | 5th |
2009 | Barazi-Epsilon | Phil Bennett Stuart Moseley |
Zytek 07S/2 | LMP2 | 306 | 28th | 4th |
2010 | Aston Martin Racing | Darren Turner Sam Hancock |
Lola-Aston Martin B09/60 | LMP1 | 368 | DNF | DNF |
References
Sporting positions | ||
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Preceded by Gareth Evans |
Le Mans Series LMP2 Champion 2006 with: Michael Vergers |
Succeeded by Thomas Erdos Mike Newton |