Matteo Cairoli

Matteo Cairoli was born on 1 June 1996 in Como, northern Italy, and began his motorsport career in karting before moving into single-seaters in 2012, competing in the Italian Formula Renault 2.0 Championship after a four-day driver course. In 2013 he finished seventh overall in the German Formula 3 Cup, and in 2014, aged 18, he won the Italian Porsche Carrera Cup at his first attempt, earning him a contract as a Porsche junior driver.

As a factory driver, Cairoli worked his way through almost the entire Porsche ladder in the years that followed: Carrera Cup Deutschland, the Porsche Supercup, where he finished runner-up in 2016, and the European Le Mans Series and FIA World Endurance Championship. In 2017 he made his debut at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, sharing a Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR with Christian Ried and Marvin Dienst.

The biggest success of his career to date came in 2021, when he won the 24 Hours of Nürburgring outright in the legendary Manthey Porsche “Grello”. In 2024 he moved to Lamborghini and was briefly part of a hypercar project that was later shelved, before impressing in the GT World Challenge Europe alongside Maro Engel and Lucas Auer in a Winward Mercedes.

In 2026 Cairoli made the jump to the DTM, taking over Jack Aitken’s Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo seat at Emil Frey Racing. As a rookie he made a blistering start to the season: after just six races he had already won twice, including a hard-fought victory at the Lausitzring, and took over the lead of the championship.