Billy Johnson (racing driver)

Billy Johnson
WeatherTech SportsCar Championship career
Debut season	2014
Current team	Chip Ganassi Racing
Racing licence	FIA Gold
Car number	68
Engine	Ford
Starts	4
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podiums	0
Poles	0
Fastest laps	0
Best finish	52nd in 2015
Previous series
2013 2005–2006, 2011–2013	American Le Mans Series Rolex Sports Car Series
NASCAR driver
2017 position		40th
Best finish	40th (2017)
First race	2017 Toyota/Save Mart 350 (Sonoma)
Wins Top tens Poles 0 0 0
CNBC Prime's "The Profit" 200 (Loudon )
Wins Top tens Poles 0 1 0
24 Hours of Le Mans career
Years	2016–2017
Teams	Chip Ganassi Racing
Best finish	21st (2016)

William Ryan Johnson (born October 10, 1986) is an American professional

.

Racing career

Early career

When he was 13 years old, Johnson started

In 2004 he competed in the

Formula BMW USA

Championship and finished 5th and received the Sportsman of the Year award.

In 2005 he finished in the top-10 of his one and only

Star Mazda

Pro Series race.

Sports cars

In 2005 he made his sports car debut with Speed Source co-driving with James Hinchcliffe in the Grand-Am Cup ST class, en route to 7 top-10 finishes in 7 races. He also made his GT car debut in the Virginia round of the Rolex Sports Car Series with Team Prototype Technology Group in a BMW M3. and had 7 top-10 finishes in the Grand-Am Cup ST class driving for SpeedSource, Matt Connolly Motorsports, and Compass 360.

In 2006 he competed in one

ST class for Kensai Racing, Potter Racing, and ROAR Racing.

2007 was his first full season in sports cars, finishing 2nd in the ST Championship with 3 victories under Kensai Racing. He also made his

GS class debut thanks to Jim Click Racing, finishing 6th as the highest placing Mustang.

In 2008, he made the progression to a full season in the GS class under Motorsport Technology Group with 4 podium finishes driving a BMW Z4 M-Coupe and Porsche 997.

In 2009, after winning at Homestead in a Porsche 997 for Motorsport Technology Group, and the team running out of funds halfway through the season, he signed with

They finished 3rd in the championship with a win at New Jersey and multiple podiums.

In late 2011 they finished 2nd in the championship with 3 victories, at VIR, Watkins Glen, and New Jersey. That year he also joined Turner Motorsport to drive a BMW M3 at the Rolex Sports Car Series, finishing fourth at Montreal.

In 2012 he made his Rolex Daytona Prototype debut with Doran Racing Sunday morning after illness and injury left the team short on drivers mid-race and Johnson filling in having never driven a Prototype. Driving for Roush, he claimed wins at Daytona and Mid-Ohio, and a podium finish in a one-off ST race at Lime Rock and a top-5 driving a BMW M3 for RumBum Racing.

In 2013 he made his

, finishing ninth. He won at Daytona and Lime Rock in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge GS class and had a podium finish at Laguna Seca in the Turner Motorsports BMW M3 in the GT class.

In 2014 he switched to

in the Ferrari 458 in the GTD class in the 24 Hours of Daytona with Ken Wilden, Dave Empringham, and Rod Randall.

In 2015 he drove with Scott Maxwell in the Boss 302R and debut the Ford Shelby GT350R-C, finishing 3rd in the Championship and winning at Lime Rock. He returned with Turner to drive a BMW Z4 at Petit Le Mans.

In 2016, he joined Chip Ganassi Racing's FIA World Endurance Championship team, driving the No. 66 Ford GT in the first three races of the season, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans; sharing the car with Olivier Pla and Stefan Mücke, he was the only American to race for Ford in the series that year.^[3] They finished 4th at LeMans.

He won the 2016

, winning 6 races that year - Daytona, Mosport, Lime Rock, Road America, COTA, and Road Atlanta.

He returned to run the 2018–19 FIA World Endurance Championship, and won the opening race at Spa.^[4]

Johnson has been involved as a test driver for

NASCAR

In 2010, Johnson made his

Johnson returned to RFR in the 2011 Nationwide Series, this time at Road America, where he topped the time charts in the first practice ^[7] before qualifying on second row and running in the top 5 until falling out early due to an engine problem.^[8]

Running only one race in 2012, Johnson scored his first NASCAR top-ten finish at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. After running in the top 5 most of the day, multiple Green-White-Checker attempts turned it into a fuel mileage race, and he had to pit for fuel on the second attempt from P2. On the third and final GWC restart, Johnson drove from 20th to 8th in two laps.^[9]

Coming off of that strong performance, Johnson led his first-ever laps at Road America in 2013. In that race, he started 7th and worked his way to the lead before a lap 14 pit road speeding penalty. He retook the lead again by lap 39 before being collected in a wreck at lap 47 while running 4th.^[10] He then made his first oval start at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, finishing both races in 15th place.^[11]

In 2017, Johnson joined

Personal life

Johnson is of Japanese descent. He graduated from

Motorsports career results

Sports car racing

(

key

)

Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge results

Year	Team	Make	Engine	Class	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	Rank	Points
2006	Kensai Racing	Acura RSX		ST	VIR DNP	LAG 4	PHX DNP	LRP DNP	MDO DNF	BAR 26	CTR 9	MIL 11	VIR DNP
2007	Kensai Racing	Acura TSX		ST	DAY 1	MDO 29	MIA 4	IA 11	LAG 1	LRP 21	MOS 1	WAT 1	BAR 7	CTR 2	MIL 7	VIR 12	2nd	299
2008	Motorsport Technology Group	Porsche 997		GS	DAY 30	LRP	MOS	MDO	WAT	BAR	IA	CTR	NJ	MIL	VIR		7th	209
		BMW Z4 (E85)			DAY	LRP 14	MOS 3	MDO DNP	WAT 15	BAR 6	IA	CTR	NJ 2	MIL	VIR 24
	Rehagen Racing	Ford Mustang FR500C			DAY	LRP	MOS	MDO	WAT	BAR	IA 10	CTR 3	NJ	MIL 3	VIR
2009	Motorsport Technology Group	Porsche 997		GS	DAY 4	MIA 1	NJ 3	LAG 14	LRP DNP	WAT	MDO	BAR	CTR	MIL	VIR		8th	231
	Horsepower Ranch	Ford Mustang FR500C			DAY	MIA	NJ	LAG	LRP DNP	WAT 9	MDO 16	BAR 3	CTR 2	MIL 1	VIR 9
2010	Roush Performance	Ford Mustang FR500C		GS	DAY 1	MIA 1	BAR 2	VIR 5	LRP 2	WAT 5	MDO 4	NJ 1	CTR 2	MIL 2			3rd	272
2011	Roush Performance	Ford Mustang Boss 302R		GS	DAY DNP	MIA 2	BAR 3	VIR 1	LRP 3	WAT 1	ELK 2	LAG 22	NJ 1	MDO 2			2nd	267
2012	Roush Performance	Ford Mustang Boss 302R		GS	DAY 1	BAR 21	MIA 5	NJ 22	MDO 1	ELK 2	WAT 21	IMS 23	LAG DNP	LRP 5			12th	183
2013	Roush Performance	Ford Mustang Boss 302R		GS	DAY 1	COA DNF	BAR 18	ATL 6	MDO 19	WAT 21	IMS 2	ELK 11	KAN 16	LAG 15	LRP 1		7th	219
2014	Multimatic Motorsports	Ford Mustang Boss 302R		GS	DAY 9	SEB 17	LAG 10	LRP 26	KAN 10	WAT DNF	MOS 2	IMS 9	ELK 9	VIR 15	COA 3	ATL 1	10th	235
2015	Multimatic Motorsports	Ford Mustang Boss 302R		GS	DAY 5	SEB 9	LAG 2	WAT 7	MOS DNF	LRP 1	ELK 12	VIR 6	COA 2	ATL 4			3rd	265
2016	Multimatic Motorsports	Ford Shelby GT350R-C		GS	DAY 1	SEB 2	LAG 4	WAT 4	MOS 1	LRP 1	ELK 1	VIR 2	COA 1	ATL 1			1st	330

Complete FIA World Endurance Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	Class	Car	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Rank	Points
2016	Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK	LMGTE Pro	Ford GT	Ford 3.5 L Turbo V6	SIL 5	SPA Ret	LMS 4	NÜR	MEX	COA	FUJ	SHA	BHR	9th	60
2017	Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK	LMGTE Pro	Ford GT	Ford 3.5 L Turbo V6	SIL 4	SPA 3	LMS 10	NÜR	MEX	COA	FUJ	SHA	BHR	12th	43
2018–19	Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK	LMGTE Pro	Ford GT	Ford 3.5 L Turbo V6	SPA 1	LMS 3	SIL	FUJ	SHA	SEB 18	SPA	LMS 4		7th	67

^* Season still in progress.

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2016	Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK	Stefan Mücke Olivier Pla	Ford GT	GTE Pro	339	21st	4th
2017	Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK	Stefan Mücke Olivier Pla	Ford GT	GTE Pro	332	27th	10th
2018	Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK	Stefan Mücke Olivier Pla	Ford GT	GTE Pro	340	21st	6th
2019	Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK	Stefan Mücke Olivier Pla	Ford GT	GTE Pro	340	25th	6th

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

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series results
Year	Team	No.	Make	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	MENCC	Pts	Ref
2017	Richard Petty Motorsports	43	Ford	DAY	ATL	LVS	PHO	CAL	MAR	TEX	BRI	RCH	TAL	KAN	CLT	DOV	POC	MCH	SON 22	DAY	KEN	NHA	IND	POC	GLN	MCH	BRI	DAR	RCH	CHI	NHA	DOV	CLT	TAL	KAN	MAR	TEX	PHO	HOM	40th	15	[13]

Nationwide Series results
Year	Team	No.	Make	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	NNSC	Pts	Ref
2010	Roush Fenway Racing	6	Ford	DAY	CAL	LVS	BRI	NSH	PHO	TEX	TAL	RCH	DAR	DOV	CLT	NSH	KEN	ROA	NHA	DAY	CHI	GTY	IRP	IOW	GLN 36	MCH	BRI	CGV	ATL	RCH	DOV	KAN	CAL	CLT	GTY	TEX	PHO	HOM	137th	55	[14]
2011		60		DAY	PHO	LVS	BRI	CAL	TEX	TAL	NSH	RCH	DAR	DOV	IOW	CLT	CHI	MCH	ROA 33	DAY	KEN	NHA	NSH	IRP	IOW	GLN	CGV QL†	BRI	ATL	RCH	CHI	DOV	KAN	CLT	TEX	PHO	HOM		84th	11	[15]
2012				DAY	PHO	LVS	BRI	CAL	TEX	RCH	TAL	DAR	IOW	CLT	DOV	MCH	ROA	KEN	DAY	NHA	CHI	IND	IOW	GLN	CGV 8	BRI	ATL	RCH	CHI	KEN	DOV	CLT	KAN	TEX	PHO	HOM			70th	36	[16]
2013		16		DAY	PHO	LVS	BRI	CAL	TEX	RCH	TAL	DAR	CLT	DOV	IOW	MCH	ROA 15	KEN	DAY	NHA 15	CHI	IND	IOW	GLN	MOH	BRI	ATL	RCH	CHI	KEN	DOV	KAN	CLT	TEX	PHO	HOM			54th	59	[17]
† – Qualified for Carl Edwards.

^* Season still in progress
¹ Ineligible for series points

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Team	Car	Class	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	DC	Points
2019	Multimatic Motorsports	Ford Mustang GT4	GT4	OUL 1	OUL 2	SNE 1	SNE 2	SIL	DON 18	SPA	BRH	DON	17th	18

• Official website
• Billy Johnson driver statistics at Racing-Reference