1,000 Greatest Drivers: Olivier Beretta

He amazingly served as the linchpin for two different sports car dynasties.

Obviously this will cover some of the same bases as my article three months ago on Dominique Dupuy because those two drivers along with their Viper teammate Karl Wendlinger became three of only four drivers to score class wins at the 24 Hours of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring, and 24 Hours of Le Mans in the same season in 2000 along with Steve Millen in 1994. However, I definitely think Beretta was the best driver and team leader of the trio as he had eight international championships in his career while Dupuy had five domestic championships in France and Wendlinger only had a single major league title, so even though I consider all three of these drivers locks, it’s pretty obvious to me how to rank them. Beretta also had six Le Mans class wins to Dupuy’s four and Wendlinger’s two, which is also consistent with that. I was wondering whether Beretta, Wendlinger, and Dupuy were the only drivers to win both Daytona and Sebring during the IMSA split. They aren’t: Kelly Collins and Cort Wagner in 1999, Lucas Luhr in 2001, Joey Hand in 2011, and Oliver Jarvis and Dion von Moltke in 2013 also did it, but it was still a pretty rare accomplishment. I’m probably not going to list all those drivers, but this does make a stronger case for drivers like Hand and Jarvis, who both have strong cases to make the list but definitely aren’t locks.