🇧🇪 Jan Heylen

Jan Heylen is a professional endurance racing driver graded FIA Gold, a full-professional classification in sportscar racing. He races primarily in the IMSA WeatherTech Championship and IMSA Pilot Challenge for RS1 and BGB Motorsports respectively, piloting GT3 and production-based cars in multiclass grids shared with amateur and semi-professional entrants. Based in Tampa, Florida, Heylen has competed at this level for over two decades and remains active in 2026.[1]

His record centres on IMSA endurance racing, where he has accumulated 84 starts across the WeatherTech and Pilot Challenge series combined since 2014, with 10 wins and 22 podiums. He won the IMSA Pilot Challenge in 2021 with Wright Motorsports and again in 2025 with RS1, establishing himself as one of the series' most consistent front-runners. In GT World Challenge America, a single-class sprint series, he has taken four wins and 16 podiums from 24 starts since 2023, demonstrating equal pace over varied formats. His career includes earlier single-seater seasons in Formula 3 Euro and Formula 3000, and a brief World Endurance Championship stint in 2022 and 2023 with Proton Competition.[2]

His regular rivals are established professionals at his level or slightly above. Bill Auberlen, an entry-level professional with FIA Silver credentials, races alongside him frequently across IMSA series and remains closely matched; Robby Foley, a professional who won the 2025 GT World Challenge America Pro-Am title, competes on similar terms. Heylen has occasionally finished ahead of significantly stronger drivers, including elite professional Kyle Kirkwood, a multiple champion in North American single-seaters and a winner in IMSA WeatherTech, whom Heylen has beaten five times across their meetings. He finished ahead of Nico Rosberg once, though Rosberg's sole shared Formula 3 Euro appearance in 2003 took place in a field where both drivers were early in their careers.