🇳🇱 Mike Hezemans

Mike Hezemans is a retired Dutch endurance racing driver who competed in the FIA GT Championship, a single-class shared-car series that mixed amateur and professional drivers. Racing primarily for Carsport Holland, he held an FIA Silver grading, placing him below the full professional Platinum and Gold grades but among drivers on the way up in GT and endurance racing. He competed across 13 seasons from 1997 to 2009, accumulating 117 starts with 14 wins and 40 podium finishes.[1]

His career was defined by sustained competitiveness at the championship's upper level. In his final season in 2009, he took two wins and four podiums across eight rounds to finish second in the championship standings. Across his full career in the FIA GT Championship, he regularly faced two-time champion Christophe Bouchut, a fellow Silver-graded professional, and held his own in that matchup; he more consistently finished ahead of Gerold Ried, another regular FIA GT opponent. Among the stronger drivers Hezemans faced, he finished ahead of Nigel Mansell, the 1992 Formula 1 champion, and Anthony Davidson, a Platinum-graded WEC LMP1 champion.[2]

Operating as an established professional within the amateur-to-professional GT field, Hezemans sat among the series' stronger contenders without dominating it. His regular co-drivers and rivals were drawn from across the amateur and semi-professional ranks, with occasional encounters against drivers of higher standing. His team, Carsport Holland, fielded him for 21 of his starts and won 12 races across the whole index with drivers rated as strong as established professional level.