A prolific winner in Mercedes GT3 cars on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond in 2023, Jules Gounon’s second straight GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup title capped a year in which he also claimed a third straight Bathurst 12 Hour win.
Together with Dani Juncadella, he won more races than the IMSA GTD Pro title-winners, including the Daytona 24 Hours. Whether it was Paul Ricard – fastest in qualifying by 0.336s – or Oulton Park, where he lowered his own lap record to snare pole, the Intercontinental GT Challenge champion was quick everywhere.
How Gounon made Bathurst history
Jules Gounon really had no right to extend his winning run at Mount Panorama this year. It’s a point he himself acknowledges.
“It was definitely not an expected win,” the second-generation racer told Autosport earlier this year in an interview reflecting on his rollercoaster journey to becoming a professional racing driver.
On paper, the SunEnergy1 Mercedes - entered in the Pro class despite having bronze-rated Kenny Habul in its line-up along with Luca Stolz - couldn’t match up to opposition that could call on three factory drivers. And even leading into the final hour, victory still didn’t seem likely.
With poleman Maro Engel’s GruppeM Mercedes bearing down on him, shod with fresh tyres while Gounon was on double-stinted rubber, it was seemingly a question of when the lead would change hands rather than if.
But after a lunge at the Chase ended in contact and a penalty for Engel, Gounon held off Matt Campbell’s Porsche to become the first driver to notch three victories following his wins in 2020 (as a Bentley works driver) and 2022. Perhaps it’s not a surprise that he referenced it as “maybe one of the best [wins] of my career”.
“It was a crazy feeling and something I’m not sure can be achieved again,” Gounon reflected. “We had everything that went our way with the contact on the last phase with Maro, I could have got a puncture, then I was on a double-stint tyre, the Porsche was catching…
“To win Daytona the week before and following my third success in Bathurst, I felt like I was living a dream.”
Gounon had a knack for pulling results out of the bag in 2023. Take the GTD Pro class win at Laguna Seca’s IMSA round, when he avoided a penalty for following an improper wave-around procedure that was duly handed to Ross Gunn and Antonio Garcia. Or at the Spa 24 Hours, where a repeat win wasn’t realistically on after the car gained 15kg and had its air restrictors trimmed, but after driving over 10 hours he still came away with second which proved key in defending his GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup title with Raffaele Marciello and Timur Boguslavskiy.
With Juncadella and Marciello departing the Mercedes fold for Corvette and BMW respectively, Gounon has the chance to stake his claim as Mercedes’ focal point in 2024.
