Gil de Ferran, the holder of IndyCar’s fastest qualifying average at 241.428mph, the two-time CART IndyCar Series champion, and winner of the 2003 Indianapolis 500, has died at the age of 56. De Ferran is believed to have suffered a heart attack while participating at an automotive event in Florida.
The French-born Brazilian rose to prominence in the early 1990s during his pursuit of Formula 1. De Ferran’s first major accomplishment was earning the 1992 British Formula 3 championship while driving for Paul Stewart Racing, following which he graduated to the fierce Formula 3000 series — known today as Formula 2 — and placed third in 1994 before earning an invitation from legendary team owner Jim Hall to sample a CART Indy car.
It was the call to join a revamped Team Penske in 2000 that allowed de Ferran’s true potential to be shown. Wielding the “Renske,” the Penske-developed Reynard 2KI-Honda-Firestone, de Ferran was a rocket, winning twice and standing on seven podiums as his mastery of roads, streets, and big and small ovals demonstrated how complete a driver he’d become.
Retiring at the end of the year, de Ferran spent time away from the sport before turning to management for a brief period as Honda’s sporting director for its F1 team. With his deep ties to the brand, he was awarded a contract to run a factory LMP2 program for Acura in the American Le Mans Series, and returned in the middle of the 2008 season as the owner/driver of the de Ferran Motorsports ARX-01b with a young Simon Pagenaud as his teammate.
https://racer.com/2023/12/29/gil-de-ferran-1967-2023/