Christian Klien

Christian Klien

Nation:	Austria
Formula 1 world championship
First start:	2004 Australian Grand Prix
Last start:	Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2010
Constructors
2004  Jaguar  • 2005–2006  Red Bull  • 2010  HRT
statistics
World Cup balance:	WM-15. ( 2005 )
Starts Victories Poles SR 49 - - -
World Cup points :	14th
Podiums :	-
Leadership laps :	-

Christian Klien (born February 7, 1983 in Hohenems , Vorarlberg ) is an Austrian racing driver . He started in Formula 1 from 2004 to 2010 and was most recently under contract with HRT .

Career

Beginnings in motorsport

Before Klien focused on motorsport , he tried several sports. He first came into contact with Formula 1 at the age of eight when he and his father sneaked through a hole in the fence into the Formula 1 paddock. He met the reigning world champion Ayrton Senna . After this encounter, he concentrated on motorsport and began his career in karting in 1995 , where he was active until 1999.

In 1999 he also made his debut in formula racing and immediately finished fourth in the Formula BMW Junior . In 2000 he switched to the German Formula BMW, in which he competed for the Rosberg team. After finishing tenth in his first season, he stayed with Team Rosberg in 2001 and improved to third overall with five wins. In 2002 he moved to JD Motorsport and competed in both the German Formula Renault and the Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup . While he won the championship title of the German Formula Renault with four wins ahead of Bruno Spengler , he was sixth in the Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup.

In 2003 he and Markus Winkelhock from Mücke Motorsport signed a contract for the newly founded Formula 3 Euro Series . Klien won three races and competed with Ryan Briscoe for the championship title. In the end he had to admit defeat Briscoe with 110 to 89 points and became runner-up. He also won the prestigious Formula 3 Masters in Zandvoort ahead of Nelson Piquet junior and was voted Vorarlberg's Sportsman of the Year and Austrian Motor Sportsman of the Year.

formula 1

At the end of November 2003, Klien was allowed to complete Formula 1 test drives for Jaguar Racing together with Townsend Bell . The Austrian convinced the team so much that they signed him for the 2004 season as a team-mate of Mark Webber . According to the team, the sponsorship money from Red Bull , which Klien sponsored, should not have been the decisive factor. The Austrian was unable to keep up with his team-mate in most of the races and only scored points once in sixth place at the Belgian Grand Prix . At the end of the season he finished 16th.

Christian Klien in the Red Bull RB1 2005 at Silverstone

After the 2004 season, Dietrich Mateschitz took over the Jaguar team and renamed it Red Bull Racing . In addition to David Coulthard , who had been signed by McLaren , Klien was to take over the second cockpit in 2005, alternating with the Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi , who won the international Formula 3000 championship in 2004. After Klien was allowed to complete the first three Grands Prix, he had to hand over his cockpit to Liuzzi for the next four races. Klien was allowed to complete all of the remaining races. Overall, he was unable to start two races in which he was in the cockpit. At the end of the season, the Austrian finished 15th overall with nine points.

In 2006 Klien kept the second cockpit next to Coulthard. Klien had bad luck at the Monaco Grand Prix when a defect ended his race in fifth place. Since, as in the previous year, he was unable to keep up with his experienced team-mate, there were already rumors during the season that they wanted to fill the second cockpit at Red Bull Racing. According to the team, Klien was out of the question for Scuderia Toro Rosso , the sister team of Red Bull Racing. In the end, after differences within the team, Klien was released from Red Bull three races before the end of the season and replaced by Robert Doornbos . The trigger for the breakup was that Klien let it be reported on television that he did not want to drive for Red Bull in the Champ Car series.

Test driver in Formula 1 and debut in endurance racing

Klien at the Goodwood Festival of Speed ​​in the Honda RA107 (2007)

After speculating about an immediate change as a test driver to Midland F1 Racing , he became a test driver for the 2007 Honda Formula 1 team . In this role, Klien was allowed to represent the operational pilot Jenson Button , who had to take a break due to muscle pain in his back, during training for the British Grand Prix .

After Christijan Albers' contract with Spyker was terminated in July 2007, the Dutch team showed interest in Klien, just like before the season when it was registered under the name Midland. He was allowed to test the Spyker in Spa-Francorchamps in mid-July , but was unable to convince the team to use him as a regular driver for the upcoming race at the Nürburgring . Instead, the German Markus Winkelhock, his former teammate from the Formula 3 Euro Series and until then the team's test driver, was given the cockpit for this race. For the rest of the season, the Japanese Sakon Yamamoto , who brought sponsors, was used.

Klien tests the BMW Sauber F1.09 in Bahrain 2009

At the end of November, the Austrian was invited to test drives in Barcelona by the Spyker successor team, Force India . Together with several candidates, Klien applied with his test laps for a regular place in the 2008 season. The Austrian achieved the fastest time of all applicants, but they were driven on different days with different conditions. Ultimately, the Indian team decided against Klien and opted for the Italian Giancarlo Fisichella as the regular driver for 2008. Klien himself was hired as a test and reserve driver for the BMW Sauber F1 Team for the 2008 season . In June 2008, Klien and Franck Montagny and Ricardo Zonta finished third in a Peugeot 908 HDi FAP at the Le Mans 24-hour race . In 2009 , Klien stayed with BMW Sauber as a test driver and competed in the Le Mans 24-hour race again. This time he finished sixth with Nicolas Minassian and Pedro Lamy as teammates on a Peugeot 908 HDi FAP. In May 2009, he won with his team-mates Minassian and Simon Pagenaud , the 1000 km race at Spa-Francorchamps .

After the BMW Sauber F1 Team had been sold to Peter Sauber , Klien initially did not have a cockpit for the 2010 season . Since May 2010, alongside Yamamoto, Klien was initially test and reserve driver for the Spanish Formula 1 team HRT . After his Japanese team-mate had already competed in races and Klien had completed two free practice sessions, he contested his first Formula 1 race since 2006 at the Singapore Grand Prix . He jumped in as a substitute driver because Yamamoto had to drop out with food poisoning. Although he had little experience with the car, he was immediately faster than his team-mate Bruno Senna . He retired in the race with technical problems. Three races later, at the Brazilian Grand Prix , the Austrian returned to the HRT cockpit for the last two races of the season. At the end of the season he finished 27th overall in the drivers' world championship.

Change to endurance sports

Christian Klien at the Le Mans pre-test in April 2011 in the Aston Martin AMR-One

After Klien had not received a contract for the 2011 Formula 1 World Championship , he decided to switch to endurance racing, in which he had already competed in parallel to his Formula 1 test driver engagement. He now started for Aston Martin Racing , where he drove the newly developed Aston Martin AMR-One. The vehicle proved to be prone to errors and so Klien was unable to finish the Le Mans race. Therefore, at the end of the season, Aston Martin switched to last year's Lola-Aston Martin LMP1, which he drove in Silverstone with Adrián Fernández and Harold Primat in 6th place.

In 2012 Klien started in the Superstars series and won on his debut at the Hungaroring . For the fall he has received a contract with Supercheap Auto Racing Team and will compete in the endurance races of the V8 Supercar Series in Australia.

On September 23, 2015, the Zele Racing team from Carinthia confirmed the engagement of Klien, who will start in the Renault Sport Trophy on a Renault Sport RS 01 the following weekend (September 26-27) in Le Mans . On this debut, Klien took 5th place in the endurance race and 6th place in the sprint race.

Personal

In the spring of 2006, Klien moved from Hohenems to the neighboring town of Diepoldsau in Switzerland . From January 2017, Klien completed his basic military service in the Walgau barracks in Bludesch .

statistics

Career stations

1995–1999: karting 1999: Formula BMW Junior (4th place) 2000: German Formula BMW (10th place) 2001: German Formula BMW (3rd place) 2002: German Formula Renault (champion) 2002: Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup (6th place)

2003 : Formula 3 Euro Series (2nd place) 2004 : Formula 1 (16th place) 2005 : Formula 1 (15th place) 2006 : Formula 1 (18th place) 2007 : Formula 1 (test driver) 2008 : Formula 1 (test driver)

2008: American Le Mans Series , LMP1 class (12th place) 2009 : Formula 1 (test driver) 2009: American Le Mans Series, LMP1 class (16th place) 2009: Le Mans Series , LMP1 class (10th place) 2010: Formula 1 (27th place)

Statistics in the Formula 1 World Championship

general overview

season	team	chassis	engine	run	Victories	Second	Third	Poles	nice Race laps	Points	WM-Pos.
2004	Jaguar Racing	Jaguar R5  /  R5B	Cosworth 3.0 V10	18th	-	-	-	-	-	3	16.
2005	Red Bull Racing	Red Bull RB1	Cosworth 3.0 V10	13	-	-	-	-	-	9	15th
2006	Red Bull Racing	Red Bull RB2	Ferrari 2.4 V8	15th	-	-	-	-	-	2	18th
2010	Hispania Racing F1 Team	HRT F110	Cosworth 2.4 V8	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	27.
total				49	-	-	-	-	-	14th

Single results

season	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th	16	17th	18th	19th
2004
	11	10	14th	14th	DNF	DNF	12	9	DNF	11	14th	10	13	6th	13	DNF	12	14th
2005
	7th	8th	DNS	TD	TD	TD	TD	8th	DNS	DNF	15th	9	DNF	8th	13	9	9	9	5
2006
	8th	DNF	DNF	DNF	DNF	13	DNF	14th	11	DNF	12	8th	DNF	11	11
2010
					PO				PO						DNF			22nd	20th

Legend
colour	abbreviation	meaning
gold	-	victory
silver	-	2nd place
bronze	-	3rd place
green	-	Placement in the points
blue	-	Classified outside the point ranks
violet	DNF	Race not finished (did not finish)
	NC	not classified
red	DNQ	did not qualify
	DNPQ	failed in pre-qualification (did not pre-qualify)
black	DSQ	disqualified
White	DNS	not at the start (did not start)
	WD	withdrawn
Light Blue	PO	only participated in the training (practiced only)
	TD	Friday test driver
without	DNP	did not participate in the training (did not practice)
	INJ	injured or sick
	EX	excluded
	DNA	did not arrive
	C.	Race canceled
		no participation in the World Cup
other	P / bold	Pole position
	SR / italic	Fastest race lap
	*	not at the finish, but counted due to the distance covered
	()	Streak results
	underlined	Leader in the overall standings

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
2008	Team Peugeot Total	Peugeot 908 HDi FAP	Franck Montagny	Ricardo Zonta	Rank 3
2009	Team Peugeot Total	Peugeot 908 HDi FAP	Nicolas Minassian	Pedro Lamy	Rank 6
2011	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin AMR-One	Darren Turner	Stefan Mücke	failure	Engine failure
2014	Morand Racing	Morgan LMP2	Gary Hirsch	Romain Brandela	Rank 10

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
2009	Team Peugeot Total	Peugeot 908 HDi FAP	Pedro Lamy	Nicolas Minassian	failure	mechanics

Web links

Commons : Christian Klien  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

 Wikinews: Christian Klien  - in the news

• Official website of Christian Klien

Individual evidence

1. ↑ “Q&A with Kubica, Heidfeld and Klien” (pitpass.com on January 10, 2009)
2. ^ "Austrian wins Formula 3 classic" (Motorsport-Total.com on August 10, 2003)
3. ^ "Klien Austria's automobile athlete of the year" (Motorsport-Total.com on November 24, 2003)
4. ↑ "Klien impressed Jaguar - another test planned?" (Motorsport-Total.com on November 27, 2003)
5. ↑ "Jaguar Racing officially confirms Klien as the second driver" (Motorsport-Total.com on December 2, 2003)
6. ↑ "Klien's days at Red Bull are numbered" (Motorsport-Total.com on August 6, 2006)
7. ^ "Official: Doornbos takes over Klien's cockpit with immediate effect" (Motorsport-Total.com on September 11, 2006)
8. ↑ "Klien already in action in China for MF1 Racing?" (Motorsport-Total.com on September 11, 206)
9. ^ "Honda: Button ko, Comeback von Klien" (Motorsport-Total.com on July 6, 2007)
10. ^ "Christian Klien will be test and replacement driver at HRT" (Motorsport-Total.com on May 5, 2010)
11. ↑ "HRT with an exciting Friday" (Motorsport-Total.com on May 7, 2010)
12. ↑ "HRT: Is the competition disappearing again?" (Motorsport-Total.com on June 25, 2010)
13. ↑ "Second comeback: Klien drives again too!" (Motorsport-Total.com on September 24, 2010)
14. ↑ "Second chance: Klien replaces Yamamoto in Brazil" (Motorsport-Total.com on November 4, 2010)
15. ↑ "HRT sends Klien and Senna into the race again" (Motorsport-Total.com on November 10, 2010)
16. ^ "New job for Klien: With Aston Martin to Le Mans" (Motorsport-Total.com on March 24, 2011)
17. ↑ "Klien in the Renault Sport Trophy" (motorline.cc on October 13, 2015)
18. ↑ SPEEDWEEK Formula 1 - Christian Klien: "Military similar to Formula 1" . In: SPEEDWEEK . ( speedweek.com [accessed January 19, 2017]).