Nick Tandy, the Farmer, Is Now Also the Endurance Champion Driver

New York Times

11-03-2025

For a farmer, Nick Tandy has not done too badly for himself in motorsport.
In January, Tandy made history by becoming the first driver to win the grand slam of 24-hour racing with his victory at Daytona. It added to his wins in previous years at Le Mans, Spa and Nürburgring, all with Porsche.
'For the last three years, I've been trying desperately to win it,' Tandy said in an interview in February, referring to his win at Daytona with Porsche Penske Motorsport. 'This year it's come true.
'Honestly, you don't really think about the size of the achievement until people start talking about it, or asking questions about it. It's a massive thing for me because it's my world and it's what I do, but I'm just one person in that massive world.'
Tandy said he did not realize the scale of his achievements until the following weeks.
'It brought home what I've done, something that nobody's ever done, let alone a little farmer from the north of Bedfordshire that just decided to go racing one day,' he said, referring to a county in England.
Tandy, 40, has followed his father, Joe, into farming. When not at a racetrack, Tandy supports his father in running a 250-acre farm, swapping the 205 m.p.h. top speed of his Porsche 963 for the snail's pace of a combine harvester.
'If you look at history, there have been a lot of farming families that have gotten into motorsport, Jim Clark probably being one of the most famous,' he said. Clark won two Formula 1 drivers' championships in the 1960s.
'The good thing I find is when I go racing, I pack my bags, leave my house, and I'm in race mode, and then when I return, I switch off with the farming. It gives me the time off to decompress and to regather my strength for the pressure, hard work and energy involved in top-level professional sport.'
After winning the Petit Le Mans in 2013, at the Road Atlanta track in Georgia, Tandy triumphed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2015. A win at the Nürburgring 24 Hours followed in 2018 and the 24 Hours of Spa two years later.
Although he took a class victory at Daytona on his first outing in 2014, it has been a long wait to complete the set.
Tandy said winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans was 'all my goals and dreams achieved at that point, but then you think, 'Oh, what comes next?''
After he won at Spa, he said, 'a journalist said to me, 'No one's ever won the four 24-hour races outright in history. I thought, 'There's a target, there's a goal.''
Tandy raced in Porsches from 2009 to 2012, then became a works driver the following year. After two years with Corvette in 2021 and 2022, he returned to Porsche as it again embarked on a full-time program in the I.M.S.A. WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
At the third attempt, Tandy triumphed at Daytona alongside his teammates Felipe Nasr of Brazil and Laurens Vanthoor of Belgium. Tandy and Nasr will be teammates for the remainder of this year's International Motor Sports Association calendar, starting with the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.
Nasr, a Formula 1 driver with Sauber in 2015 and 2016, is a three-time I.M.S.A. champion and a two-time winner at Sebring.
'Nick has the grand slam of motor racing pretty much because he won all the most famous 24-hour races available,' Nasr said in an interview in February.
'I told Nick after we won at Daytona, 'Hey, you've got to help me win Le Mans now because you've got it all. It's my turn to ask you a favor.'' Nasr has not won at Le Mans, in any class, in five attempts.
Nasr said it was a measure of Tandy's character as a driver that, with four hours remaining at Daytona, they discussed who would take the final stint. Despite what was at stake for Tandy, he let Nasr take the wheel.
'I asked him if he wanted to close the race,' Nasr said. 'He stood, and I could see he was thinking, but then after a couple of seconds he looked right into my eyes and said, 'Felipe, you're going to jump in this car and you're going to drive the hell out of it until the end. You're going to finish the race.' That was really nice.
'I have huge respect for Nick and the achievements in his career. There was no doubt he could have done the job as well, so for him to say, 'Felipe, you're going to go out there and win this race for us,' that was really cool. That was one of the coolest moments I've seen in racing.'
Nasr's I.M.S.A. championship victories in 2018, 2021 and last year have been with different teammates. Although he successfully partnered with Dane Cameron of the United States at Porsche Penske Motorsport in 2024, he saw no issue switching to Tandy this season.
'The good thing about being involved with Porsche Penske Motorsport is that it has a great portfolio of drivers it can play between the series, either I.M.S.A. or W.E.C.,' Nasr said, referring to the World Endurance Championship. 'That's something I have full trust in the team.
'Dane and the team went different paths so they came up with the idea of putting me and Nick in the car, the older guys in the program, let's say, with this mix of experience and knowledge of the series.'
Tandy has never won the I.M.S.A. drivers' championship in nine attempts. He finished second to Nasr and Cameron last year in partnership with Mathieu Jaminet of France.
'It's funny, but I probably had more battles with Nick on the track last year than I had with any other driver,' Nasr said. 'Now we are racing together, and despite all our successes, we are both hungry for more.'
Jonathan Diuguid, the Porsche Penske Motorsport managing director, said in an interview in February that Tandy and Nasr 'have clicked right away and have been successful right off the bat. It goes to show that hopefully, we made the right decision for the rest of the season.'
Diuguid said Tandy's success in the four 24-hour races was because of 'a comprehensive understanding of what it takes to be successful in endurance racing.
'It's not just about cranking out the lap time, managing the traffic, taking care of the car or dealing with conditions. It's all of these things. For him to succeed in those four races like that is a massive achievement and something I know he doesn't take for granted.'
Sebring is the next box to tick for Tandy. He had G.T.L.M. class wins in 2018, 2019 and 2020, but overall victory has eluded him. With Porsche Penske Motorsport he was third in 2023 and ninth last year.
'I've been lucky enough to win Sebring three times in the GT class,' Tandy said. 'Sebring, overall, would complete the so-called triple crown of events, which is Sebring, Daytona and Le Mans.
'It would also finalize the big six of multihour endurance races, which includes the big four 24-hour events and Petit Le Mans, which is 10 hours. I'm more confident this year than the last two years, and we nearly won the last two years.'