Markus Palttala

Markus Palttala (born 16 August 1977 in Nakkila) is a Finnish racing driver. After racing in karts, Palttala began racing cars in the Finnish Touring Car Championship in 1998. He competed in the 2001 European Super Production Championship, driving a Honda Integra. Palttala's first run in Grand Touring cars came in 2000 in the single-make Porsche Carrera Cup Germany. He moved to the FIA GT Championship beginning in 2002, competing sporadically in 2006, 2008, and 2009, and also competed in its successor championships, the FIA GT1 World Championship and FIA GT3 European Championship through 2011. Palttala's best seasons came in 2011 and 2012 in the Blancpain Endurance Series, where he finished 2nd in the championship each year, driving for Marc VDS Racing Team.
Palttala drove in the Le Mans Endurance Series for various teams from 2005 until 2010. In the 2010 season, he won the GT1 class at the 1000 km of Spa and participated in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. He ran the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2012 (including another outing at Le Mans) and 2013. Palttala joined Turner Motorsport for the inaugural United SportsCar Championship season in 2014. He took his first GT-Daytona class win in the third race of the season at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, and followed it up with a dominating win at the Six Hours of Watkins Glen.

24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2010	Marc VDS Racing Team	Eric De Doncker Bas Leinders	Ford GT1	LMGT1	26	DNF	DNF
2012	JWA-Avila	Paul Daniels Joël Camathias	Porsche 911 GT3 RSR	LMGTE-AM	290	33rd	8th
2014	Prospeed Competition	François Perrodo Emmanuel Collard	Porsche 911 GT3 RSR	LMGTE-AM	194	DNF	DNF

NASCAR

(key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)

Whelen Euro Series - Elite 1

NASCAR Whelen Euro Series - Elite 1 results
Year	Team	No.	Make	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	NWES	Points
2014	Racing Club Partners – Marc VDS	46	Toyota	VAL	VAL	BRH 8	BRH 9	TOU	TOU	NUR 6	NUR 21	UMB	UMB	LEM	LEM	22nd	178