Conrad Laursen

Conrad Nicholai Weis Laursen is a Danish racing driver driving in the European Le Mans Series and GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup with AF Corse. He is the [2020 F4 Danish people|Danish Championship|2020 Danish F4] champion and 2025 GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup champion in the Bronze Cup class. Laursen is the son of former sportscar racing competitor Johnny Laursen.

Early career

2020

In 2020, Laursen made his single-seater debut, competing in the F4 Danish Championship with FSP Racing. He started the campaign off strongly, taking a triple of podiums, which included his maiden win in car racing, at Jyllandsringen. The same results followed at Padborg Park, where the Dane once again finished second, third and first in the races. Having taken a sole podium in the third event, Laursen was declared as champion following the cancellation of the season finale, scheduled to take place at Sturup Raceway.

2021

Laursen progressed to the Italian F4 Championship the following year, driving for Prema Powerteam. Starting his year by finishing fifth in the season opener at Le Castellet, Laursen struggled the following round in Misano, being forced to retire from two races. Consistent points would come at Vallelunga and Imola, before he went without a points finish at the Red Bull Ring. Having scored a pair of top-ten results as well as a fastest lap at Monza, Laursen finished ninth in the overall championship, whilst losing out narrowly on the rookie title to Nikita Bedrin owing to a spin in the final race.

2022

Having started 2022 by racing in two events of the F4 UAE Championship, where he scored a pair of podiums, Laursen returned to the [2022 2022 Italian F4 Championship|Italian F4 Championship|Italian] and ADAC F4 series for his main campaign, once again competing with Prema. His season in the former began slowly, with the first two rounds yielding a mere three points finishes, before he scored his first podium in the series, finishing second in Race 3 at Spa. Another podium would follow at the Red Bull Ring, however that round would see Laursen's final points finish of the campaign, which meant that he classified 11th in the standings. In the German championship, Laursen scored a podium during the opening round, having come back from a 19th-placed grid slot during race 3, before struggling to achieve major results at the Hockenheimring, notably dropping to ninth from reverse-grid pole in the final race. Laursen bounced back at Zandvoort, where, having taken third place in race 1, he held off teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli to take his first victory in the championship on Sunday by less than a tenth of a second. Despite leaving the series after round four, where he made another appearance on the rostrum, Laursen ended up sixth in the drivers' standings.

Sportscar career

2022: First appearance

Laursen made his first appearance in the world of GT racing in the Ferrari Challenge Europe, scoring a pair of top five finishes at the Hockenheimring in 2022.

2023: Debut in ELMS

For the 2023 season, Laursen switched to sportscar racing on a full-time basis, teaming up with his father Johnny and fellow Dane Nicklas Nielsen in the Asian Le Mans Series at the start of the year, before racing with the same teammates in the European Le Mans Series during the summer, driving for AF Corse-run Formula Racing in the GT category of both championships. Having scored two second places in the ELMS, the Laursens classified seventh in the standings.

2024: First ELMS win

Laursen remained with Formula Racing in the ELMS, once again joining father Johnny and Nielsen at Formula Racing. During the opening round at Barcelona, Laursen and his teammates profited from an issue for the dominant Iron Dames entry to inherit the win and take the team's first win in the series since 2015, as well as Laursen's first ever sportscar victory. After a pair of ninth places in Le Castellet and Imola, Laursen's father was involved in an incident with Grégoire Saucy at Spa which put the team out of the race. Third place at Mugello and fourth in Portimão — a race where the Laursens drove without Nielsen — allowed the Formula Racing crew to finish sixth in the points standings.
Laursen, together with his father and Jordan Taylor, made his debut at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2024 with Spirit of Race. The car ran inside the top-five before Laursen suffered a collision that put the team two laps behind the leaders. Laursen set the fastest lap of the race within the LMGT3 category and finished eighth. At the end of the year, Laursen also made his FIA World Endurance Championship debut at Bahrain, replacing Clemens Schmid at Akkodis ASP.

2025: GTWC Bronze Cup title

After taking part in the 2025 24 Hours of Daytona with AF Corse, Laursen embarked on a double campaign: he partnered Ferrari factory driver Davide Rigon and bronze-ranked Charles-Henri Samani in the ELMS, whilst joining Dennis Marschall and Dustin Blattner in the Bronze Cup of the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup. Despite only finishing ninth in the ELMS standings, Laursen received the Goodyear Golden Wingfoot Award for having the best stint averages across the season. Laursen came close to finishing on the podium at Le Castellet, where he spun whilst chasing eventual third-place finisher Riccardo Pera, and at Imola, where Laursen finished third on-track but was demoted to fourth with a Full-Course Yellow infringement penalty.
In the GTWC Endurance Cup, Laursen and his teammates took victory at the Paul Ricard season opener after Marschall held off Dan Harper's advances in the final hour. After an unsuccessful Monza race, the 24 Hours of Spa yielded a class victory for the team; they ran near the front throughout the event, with Laursen charging from third to first during a night stint. Thanks to a strong Q3 effort by Blattner, the trio took pole at the Nürburgring. However, Laursen was collected by the No. 99 Attempto Racing Audi in a four-car collision and retired from the race. Nevertheless, a third place in class at Barcelona was enough to confirm Laursen and his teammates as Bronze Cup champions.