Franz Albert

Franz Albert (born January 6, 1931 in Wörgl ; † November 10, 2017 in Dénia ) was an Austrian racing car driver .

Career

Franz Albert was the second Austrian racing driver after Gotfrid Köchert to become internationally known after the Second World War . Albert drove his first race at a national road race in Linz in 1959. Shortly before that, he had acquired a Porsche 550 , which became his first racing car. He competed with the Porsche in national sports car races in Austria and swapped the car for a Porsche 718 RS 60 in 1961 . In 1962 he was the second Austrian to compete in the Le Mans 24-hour race . As a partner of Gianni Balzarini he drove a plant - Abarth-Simca 1300 Bialbero . The race ended for the duo after just 30 laps due to a gearbox failure.

In the 1970s, he contested a few rounds of the European Touring Car Championship on his privately registered Chevrolet Camaro . From 1977 he competed regularly in the German racing championship . His emergency vehicles, a BMW 2002 and from 1978 a BMW 320i Turbo , were equipped with camshafts he developed himself . These Albert camshafts were sought-after components by tuning companies for the technical upgrade of racing vehicles.

At the beginning of the 1980s, the Austrian only competed sporadically because he had to worry more and more about his own tuning company. In 1984 he improved the performance of the Countach Turbo S on behalf of Ferruccio Lamborghini and brought it to an output of 748 hp with a torque of 876 Nm. With a top speed of 333 km / h, the Lamborghini tuned by Albert was the fastest road vehicle at the time. His last racing touring car was a Mazda S124. In 1984 he finally retired from racing.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1962	Abarth Corse & Cie	Abarth-Simca 1300 Bialbero	Gianni Balzarini	failure	Gearbox damage

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th
1962	Abarth	Abarth-Simca 1300 Bialbero	DAY	SEB	SEB	MAY	TAR	BER	ONLY	LEM	TAV	CCA	RTT	ONLY	BRI	BRI	PAR
										DNF

Web links

• All race results from Franz Albert

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Franz Albert died