Toni Vilander
| Toni Vilander | |
|---|---|
| Born |
25 July 1980 Kankaanpää, Finland |
| Nationality |
 Finnish |
| 24 Hours of Le Mans career | |
|---|---|
| Participating years | 2008, 2010– |
| Teams |
AF Corse Risi Competizione |
| Best finish | 13th (2011) |
| Class wins | 2 (2012, 2014) |
Toni Markus Vilander (born 25 July 1980) is a Finnish professional racing driver who currently drives for the AF Corse Ferrari team in various categories of sports car racing.
After a single-seater career which reached the level of the GP2 Series in 2005, Vilander switched to GT racing. He has had numerous success with AF Corse, winning the 2012 and 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans LMGTE-PRO class races with former grand prix drivers Giancarlo Fisichella and Gianmaria Bruni, and also the GT2 class championship within the FIA GT Championship in 2007 and 2008.
Born in Kankaanpää, Vilander started racing karts at the age of five, winning the Junior A class of the Finnish Karting Championship in 1995, and both the German and Oceanic championships in 1999. He then upgraded to open-wheel cars in 2001. By 2004, he was competing in Italian Formula 3 with the Coloni team, and upgraded to Italian Formula 3000 in 2005, as well as competing in the Italian GT series.
However, trouble was brewing in the Coloni GP2 team, as lead driver Gianmaria Bruni had a row and left mid-season. Vilander got the call-up from Coloni to be Bruni's temporary substitute and competed in the Italian and Belgian rounds of the championship. He proved a competent midfield runner, finishing 15th, 8th, 14th and 13th in the four races in which he took part. For the season-closing double-header in Bahrain, Coloni chose to replace Vilander with Ferdinando Monfardini, and Toni went back to his normal drives. Vilander finished 25th overall in the series' inaugural year with no points, but was more successful in Italian Formula 3000, where he finished fourth with 23 points, and more successful still in Italian GT2, where he was crowned champion with his co-driver Alessandro Pier Guidi, scoring a total of 182 points.
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