Patrick Dempsey Racing: Le Mans, Dempsey-Proton and his Porsche years

Patrick Dempsey, the American actor best known as Dr Derek Shepherd in Grey’s Anatomy, first raced in 2004 and started the 24 Hours of Le Mans four times between 2009 and 2015. His best result there was second in the GTE-Am class in 2015, in a Porsche 911 RSR entered by his own Dempsey-Proton Racing, and that October he won the class at the Six Hours of Fuji, his first win in professional sports car racing. He stepped away from driving after 2015, his name stayed on the Proton team that won GTE-Am at Le Mans in 2018, and he went back to racing Porsches in 2024.

Besides his four Le Mans starts he raced 68 times in Grand-Am, the American Le Mans Series and IMSA’s championship, with nine podium finishes, as Motorsport.com counted in 2016.

How Patrick Dempsey got into racing

Dempsey grew up beside Route 4 in Lewiston, Maine, where his father, an insurance salesman, brought home a Matchbox car every Friday, he told Porsche’s Christophorus magazine. His first sport was skiing: he won the state of Maine slalom championship and wanted to go to the Olympics, he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2013, adding: “I feel more at home in the racing community in many ways than I do in Hollywood.” The fee from his first big film, Can’t Buy Me Love (1987), went on a 1963 Porsche 356, which he used every day for 15 years and said in 2013 he would never sell (Christophorus).

Racing school and first races

His wife gave him a course at the Skip Barber Racing School after watching him follow races on television. He then trained at the Panoz Racing School, where the head instructor was Joe Foster, later his team-mate, co-driver and business partner (Christophorus). His first race was at Mid-Ohio. Dempsey had his first competitive drive in 2004, according to an Associated Press preview of the 2014 Le Mans race, and by October 2005 he had raced in the Miata Pro Series and the Panoz Racing Series, with a best result of eighth in a Panoz race at Road Atlanta, as Hyper Sport’s announcement that month recorded. He also drove in the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race at the Long Beach Grand Prix in 2005, and again in 2006.

Hyper Sport, Vision Racing and the first team

In October 2005 Dempsey joined Hyper Sport, an Atlanta team run by Rick Skelton and Joe Foster, for the 2006 Grand-Am Cup; he was to share a BMW M3 with Skelton (Hyper Sport). The ACO’s 2016 history of his team, published on the 24 Hours of Le Mans website, dates his first stake in Hyper Sport to 2002. In February 2006 he became a co-owner of Vision Racing, the IndyCar team of Tony and Laura George, according to the team’s own profile; by 2008 its drivers were Ed Carpenter and A.J. Foyt IV, the Associated Press reported.

His interest in Le Mans began in June 2005, when he watched the race as a spectator. Patrick Long, the Porsche works driver who later became his co-driver, was on the same flight to France (Christophorus).

Grand-Am with Mazda: the Dempsey Racing years

From 2007 to 2012 Dempsey raced a Mazda RX-8 in the GT class of the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series, first for Hyper Sport and, from 2009, for his own Dempsey Racing. His first Rolex Series race was the Miller 1000 km in Utah on 15 September 2007, sharing the Hyper Sport RX-8 with Foster and Charles Espenlaub; they finished 27th, according to the Racing Sports Cars results archive. In 2008 he started nine Rolex Series races with Hyper Sport, the first of them the Rolex 24 at Daytona, where the car finished 39th overall.

Dempsey Racing takes over Hyper Sport

For 2009 Dempsey bought Hyper Sport and renamed it Dempsey Racing, AutoGuide reported in February 2009. The team ran cars in Grand-Am and the Continental Tire series with or without its owner; Dempsey’s best result in 2009 was sixth in class at Mid-Ohio, and in 2010 the team won for the first time, at Watkins Glen, with James Gué and Leh Keen driving (ACO). In December 2010 he tested the new No. 40 RX-8 at Virginia International Raceway and told The Checkered Flag: “It’s not as violent as the old car. It’s quieter with the different exhaust setup, and a lot stronger.” In April 2010 he also raced a Mazda3 in the SCCA World Challenge round on the streets of Long Beach, near his Los Angeles home, NBC Los Angeles reported.

In 2011 he raced 11 of the 12 Rolex Series rounds, and in 2012 eight, alongside the team’s prototype programme (ACO).

Patrick Dempsey at the Rolex 24 at Daytona

His best Daytona results are two thirds in class. In 2011 the Dempsey Racing RX-8 he shared with Foster, Espenlaub and Tom Long started 15th in GT, led the class nine hours in, lost the lead after going off and struggling to restart, and finished third in GT and 14th overall after 681 laps, according to the official results published by Daytona International Speedway; Mazda’s race report gives the same class place. In 2015 he was third in GT Daytona in Wright Motorsports’ No. 58 Porsche with Jan Heylen, Philipp Eng and Madison Snow, according to Wright Motorsports’ 2024 announcement on PorscheSport, which also lists class podiums at Petit Le Mans in 2013 and 2014.

Off-road: the Baja 1000 and the Mint 400

Dempsey has raced the Baja 1000 in Mexico (Reuters, 2014). On 24 March 2013 he won his category of the General Tire Mint 400 off-road race in Nevada, in a Zero One Odyssey, with Andy Lally among his co-drivers (ACO); the documentary Racing Le Mans filmed his desert racing that year (Associated Press).

Patrick Dempsey at Le Mans

Dempsey has started the 24 Hours of Le Mans four times, in 2009, 2013, 2014 and 2015, and finished all four; his best result was second in GTE-Am in 2015.

Sources: ACO team history (2016) for 2009, 2013 and 2014; Racing Sports Cars archive for 2013 and 2015 overall places; Associated Press and ACO for the 2015 class result.

2009: a Ferrari F430 with Team Seattle

Dempsey’s first Le Mans was in the No. 81 Ferrari F430 GT, a 4.0-litre V8 car, entered by Don Kitch Jr’s Team Seattle, which raised money for Seattle Children’s Hospital, and prepared by Advanced Engineering, AF Corse’s customer arm (AutoGuide; ACO). The car qualified 54th of 55 with a lap of 4min 13.920sec, 10.72sec off the GT2 pole, and on his first lap of qualifying Dempsey spun at Indianapolis corner, the Lowdown blog reported from the circuit. Kitch fell ill, so Dempsey and Foster drove the rest of the race between them; Dempsey did about ten hours. “When it gets dark on the course, an overpowering sense of solitude comes over the car,” he told Christophorus. They finished 30th of the 32 classified cars and ninth in GT2 (ACO).

2013: Dempsey Del Piero-Proton’s Porsche 911 GT3 RSR

Dempsey’s team had planned a Mazda-backed LMP2 for Le Mans with Mazda’s first diesel prototype engine; when that project stalled it entered a Porsche 911 GT3 RSR run by Proton Competition, a German team based in Ummendorf (ACO). Dempsey, Foster and Patrick Long were the only all-American crew in the 81st running of the race, held in its 90th-anniversary year, and they qualified seventh in GTE-Am, AFP reported. Michael Avenatti, the team manager, had been entered to drive and handed his seat to Long (ACO). Porsche marked his arrival with a series of films: the first followed him at the American Le Mans Series race at Long Beach with Andy Lally and Joe Foster, and the second was shot at Le Mans, a SkiddMark report of 20 June 2013 recorded. “It’s nice to say that you are in the Porsche family,” Dempsey said that week.

In heavy rain Long led the class in the first hour, and Dempsey led it at his first turn at the wheel. Before midnight a prototype knocked him off the track; an unplanned stop for a cut tyre had already cost time, and the car finished fourth in class (Christophorus), 28th overall (Racing Sports Cars). “We were like a minute 30 from being on the podium last year,” Dempsey said a year later (Associated Press). Finding the money had been harder than the driving: “It was chasing money, finding the right car and dealing with a lot of the politics,” he told The Hollywood Reporter, comparing it with raising funding for a film.

2014: fifth in GTE-Am

For 2014 the same three drivers had the newer 991-based Porsche 911 RSR, entered as Dempsey Racing-Proton. Dempsey led the class briefly, and the car finished fifth in GTE-Am and 24th overall (ACO), while Proton’s sister car was second in class, the team’s race report recorded.

2015: second in GTE-Am, his Le Mans podium

In 2015 Dempsey, Long and Marco Seefried drove the No. 77 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR and took his first Le Mans podium finish, second in GTE-Am, behind the SMP Racing Ferrari of Viktor Shaytar, Andrea Bertolini and Aleksey Basov, the Associated Press reported. They had been third until less than an hour from the finish, when the class-leading Aston Martin crashed, the ACO’s review of the season recorded. “I think it’s hard to put into words how much it means to be on the podium in Le Mans,” Dempsey said. “I’ve worked really hard over the last three years to make this happen and I’m here. Vive la France!” (AP).

Prototypes and the American Le Mans Series

Dempsey Racing moved into the American Le Mans Series in 2012 with an LMP2 prototype, then ran Porsche GTC cars in 2013 as Dempsey Del Piero Racing.

The Lola-Judd LMP2 in 2012

The team’s No. 27 Lola B12/87 with a 3.6-litre Judd V8 made its debut at Laguna Seca on 12 May 2012, driven by Dempsey, Foster and Jonny Cocker (Racing Sports Cars). It ran five ALMS rounds as preparation for a Le Mans prototype entry; Dempsey and Foster were third in class at Lime Rock and second at Road America. In 2012 the team entered 51 events with five cars and 16 drivers (ACO).

Dempsey Del Piero Racing in 2013

For 2013 Dempsey went into partnership with the Italian footballer Alessandro Del Piero, and the team ran two Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars in the ALMS GTC class. At the Sebring 12 Hours the No. 27 of Dempsey, Foster and Lally started from pole and finished sixth in class (ACO). At Laguna Seca in May Dempsey and Lally finished second in GTC, 1.841sec behind the NGT Motorsport Porsche of Cisneros and Tandy, according to the ALMS race report.

Porsche works support, Tudor GTD and the Supercup

From 2014 Dempsey raced with direct backing from Porsche (ACO). His full-time car that year was Dempsey Racing’s No. 27 Porsche 911 GT America in the GT Daytona class of the new Tudor United SportsCar Championship, shared with Andrew Davis, with Foster added for the endurance rounds (Associated Press). In July 2014 he raced as a guest in the Porsche Supercup at Hockenheim, on the support bill of the German Grand Prix, where he told Reuters: “It’s all-consuming in many ways. I couldn’t imagine not racing right now.”

The 2015 World Endurance Championship season

In 2015 Dempsey raced his only full season of the FIA World Endurance Championship, in the GTE-Am class. In February 2015 the ACO reported that Dempsey Racing had ended its activities in the United States and that its partnership with Christian Ried’s Proton Competition would be known as Dempsey-Proton Racing, with Long and Seefried as his co-drivers in the No. 77 Porsche 911 RSR. “Not much changes in my TV work, but everything changes constantly in motor racing,” he told Porsche Newsroom.

The car was sixth in class at Silverstone and fifth at Spa, second at Le Mans, then fourth at the Nürburgring and at the Circuit of the Americas, where it started from class pole (ACO; Fox Sports). Dempsey missed the last round, in Bahrain, and finished sixth in the GTE-Am drivers’ standings (ACO). At the end of May he was also the honorary starter of the Indianapolis 500.

Did Patrick Dempsey ever win a race?

Yes: the GTE-Am class of the Six Hours of Fuji on 11 October 2015, his first win in professional sports car racing, Fox Sports reported. Off the circuit he had already won his category of the Mint 400 off-road race in March 2013 (ACO). The race started in the rain under a 40-minute full-course caution, during which Dempsey took over from Long; Seefried took the class lead in the third hour and built a lap’s advantage on one set of Michelin intermediates, and Dempsey drove the last 20 minutes to complete his minimum time, finishing 17.10sec ahead of Paul Dalla Lana’s Aston Martin.

Why did Patrick Dempsey stop racing?

Dempsey stopped driving after the 2015 season to spend time with his family and on his acting, and entered no races in 2016, Fox Sports reported in March 2016. His statement, published on the team’s website in January 2016, said: “I hope my schedule permits me to enjoy some race weekends at least as a team owner” (Motorsport.com). His last episode of Grey’s Anatomy had aired in May 2015 (ACO). He stayed away from competition for eight years (Fox Sports, 2025).

Dempsey-Proton Racing after 2016

The team kept his name after he stopped driving. In 2016 Porsche chose Dempsey-Proton Racing to run its 911 RSR in GTE-Pro in the World Endurance Championship, because the factory had no works entry in that class that year (ACO); Fox Sports understood that the branding fulfilled the second year of Dempsey’s two-year contract with Porsche. Proton ran a 911 RSR in every WEC race from 2014 to 2023, and its own history says Dempsey was with the team “first as a driver and later as part of the team”.

The 2018 Le Mans class win

At Le Mans in 2018 the No. 77 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR of Matt Campbell, Christian Ried and Julien Andlauer won GTE-Am; at 18, Andlauer became the youngest class winner in the race’s history, Porsche reported. Dempsey was at the circuit and spent Sunday morning in the team’s pit garage. In the 2019 European Le Mans Series the team’s No. 77 car was second in the championship (European Le Mans Series), and the Dempsey-Proton name was still on the No. 77 Porsche at the WEC round at Sebring in March 2023 (Motorsport Week).

The 2018 Fuji data-logger penalty

In November 2018 the stewards of the World Endurance Championship disqualified both Dempsey-Proton cars from the Six Hours of Fuji and took away every point they had scored in the 2018–19 season up to that race, the Le Mans win included, the FIA WEC announced. The team had added a line of code to its own data logger that lengthened the refuelling signal sent to the official FIA/ACO logger by two seconds, and the stewards found it had been used at Silverstone as well as Fuji, Autosport reported. The team blamed an “external consultant” and would not name him; the No. 77 crew lost 80 points. The disqualification covered the Fuji race only, so the Le Mans class win stands in the results.

Patrick Dempsey’s return to racing in 2024

Dempsey went back to racing in 2024 with Wright Motorsports, the Ohio Porsche team he had driven for at Daytona in 2015, after a private test with the team in 2023. He drove the No. 98 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport in the new Porsche Endurance Challenge North America, with Patrick Long as co-driver and mentor; the car’s Mobil 1 livery copied the colours of a Le Mans-winning Porsche GT1 (PorscheSport). “During pre-production on the recent Ferrari film, I got a lot of seat time and fell off the wagon, of sorts,” he said.

At the first round, at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas, he was tenth overall and fifth in class in a Porsche Sprint Challenge race, then he and Long finished second of 19 cars in the Cayman GT4 class of the endurance race, behind the Kellymoss Porsche of Loek Hartog and Michael Clark, the Highlands News-Sun reported. The season went on to Road America and Sonoma and ended with a six-hour race back at COTA.

Is Patrick Dempsey still racing?

In March 2025 Dempsey told Fox Sports that he no longer had time to prepare for the big endurance races: “There’s no way you can be competitive unless you are constantly behind the wheel.” He said he would like to keep doing track days and sprint races, and named Road America and Watkins Glen among the circuits he still enjoys.

Racing on screen: documentaries and the film Ferrari

Dempsey has been the subject of three racing documentaries and played a racing driver in one feature film.

• Racing Le Mans, four parts on the Velocity channel from 28 August 2013, followed his 15-month build-up to the 2013 race (The Hollywood Reporter).
• Back on Track, four parts on Hagerty’s YouTube channel in November and December 2024, followed his Porsche Endurance Challenge season with Long, as RACER reported.
• Destined to Drive: Patrick Dempsey’s Return to Racing was shown on FS1 in March 2025 (Fox Sports).

In Michael Mann’s Ferrari (2023) he played Piero Taruffi, who won the 1957 Mille Miglia for Ferrari. The racing scenes used Caterham chassis with period-style bodies, driven by Dempsey with Derek Hill, Ben Collins and Marino Franchitti, he told Hagerty. For decades he held the film rights to The Limit, Michael Cannell’s book about Phil Hill’s 1961 Formula One world championship.

Patrick Dempsey’s racing record by season

Each season he raced, with his best result.

Sources: Racing Sports Cars archive, ACO, Hyper Sport, Daytona International Speedway, the ALMS race report, Fox Sports, PorscheSport and the Highlands News-Sun, as cited above.

Questions

Sources

• ACO (24h-lemans.com), “Team Presentation – LM GTE Pro: Dempsey-Proton Racing’s #77 Porsche 911 RSR”, 2016: Hyper Sport, Dempsey Racing’s wins and seasons, Le Mans 2009–2015, ALMS 2012–13, Mint 400, 2016 GTE-Pro.
• ACO, “24 Highlights of 2015 (12): Patrick Dempsey, his first win”: the 2015 season, Le Mans finish, Bahrain, standings, Indianapolis 500.
• ACO, “Proton Competition (Porsche) announce Patrick Dempsey’s team mates”, February 2015: the Dempsey-Proton name and 2015 line-up.
• Porsche Newsroom, “Dempsey Racing” (from Christophorus no. 364), 2013: childhood, the Porsche 356, racing schools, first race, Le Mans 2009 and 2013.
• Porsche Newsroom, “The team of the Hollywood star”, 2015: the 2015 WEC programme.
• Porsche Newsroom, Le Mans 2018 live report, June 2018: the 2018 GTE-Am win.
• Racing Sports Cars, Patrick Dempsey complete archive: race entries, co-drivers and overall places, 2007–2015.
• Hyper Sport via Racecar.com, “Patrick Dempsey enters Grand-Am Cup”, 12 October 2005: early races and the Hyper Sport move.
• Dempsey Racing via Racecar.com, Le Mans 2014 race report, June 2014: the 2014 result.
• Mazda, Rolex 24 at Daytona race report, January 2011: third in GT.
• Vision Racing team profile, via Conceptcarz and Associated Press via HeraldNet, 8 May 2008: Vision Racing co-ownership.
• AutoGuide, “Patrick Dempsey to Race a Ferrari F430 at Le Mans”, February 2009: Team Seattle and the Hyper Sport purchase.
• The Lowdown blog, Le Mans qualifying report, 11 June 2009: the 2009 grid position.
• The Checkered Flag, “Patrick Dempsey Returns to Track”, 1 December 2010: the new RX-8 and the Baja 1000.
• NBC Los Angeles, Long Beach preview, April 2010: the World Challenge Mazda3 and the 2006 Pro/Celebrity Race.
• The Hollywood Reporter, interview on Racing Le Mans, August 2013: skiing, the docuseries.
• AFP via Fox News, Le Mans 2013 preview, June 2013: the all-American crew and qualifying.
• Associated Press via WTOP, Le Mans 2014 preview, June 2014: first competitive drive, the 2014 Tudor season.
• Reuters via Gulf News, “Dr McDreamy the racer”, July 2014: the Porsche Supercup and the Baja 1000.
• Associated Press via Sports Illustrated, 14 June 2015: the 2015 Le Mans result and quotes.
• Fox Sports, “Patrick Dempsey gets first class win in Six Hours of Fuji”, October 2015: the Fuji win and COTA pole.
• Fox Sports via Fox News, “Patrick Dempsey officially taking hiatus”, 8 March 2016 and Motorsport.com, 7 March 2016: the step back, 68 races and nine podiums.
• FIA WEC, “Dempsey Proton Racing penalised”, November 2018 and Autosport, November 2018: the Fuji penalty.
• European Le Mans Series, Proton Competition team profile: the 2019 ELMS season.
• Motorsport Week, 16 March 2023: the Dempsey-Proton entry at Sebring.
• Proton Competition, “2014–2023: A match made in heaven”: the team’s RSR years.
• Wright Motorsports via PorscheSport, 20 May 2024: the return to racing.
• Highlands News-Sun, “Dempsey’s return to racing a positive one”, May 2024: the first race back at COTA.
• RACER via Yahoo Autos, “Dempsey returns to racing in Back on Track docuseries”, 12 November 2024: the Hagerty series.
• Fox Sports, 14 March 2025: Destined to Drive and his plans.
• Hagerty, interview on Ferrari, December 2023: the Taruffi role and filming.
• Daytona International Speedway, “Results from the 2011 Rolex 24 At Daytona”, 30 January 2011 (Internet Archive copy): third in GT, 14th overall.
• IMSA/ALMS, race report, American Le Mans Monterey, 11 May 2013 (via DailySportsCar): second in GTC at Laguna Seca.
• SkiddMark, “Grey’s Anatomy star Patrick Dempsey joins Porsche at Le Mans”, 20 June 2013: the Porsche film series and Dempsey’s statement.