Thomas Mutsch

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Thomas Mutsch as driver of a Viper as part of the public drives at the Nürburgring 2007.
Mutsch 2011 in a white Ford GT fighting an opponent.

Thomas Mutsch (born April 2, 1979 in Trier ) is a German racing driver . He is the son of a freight forwarding company and trained as a freight forwarder himself.

Career

He began his racing career as a kart driver for the Eifel Motor Sport Club (EMSC) Bitburg, of which he is still a member today. His first success was in 1993, a third place in the ADAC - Pop-kart championships. In 1995 he won 2nd place in Formula Renault 1800. In 1996 he was 8th in Formula Renault 2000. The next year he finished the season in second place. From 1998 to 2000 he took part in the International German Formula 3 Championship .

In 2007 he took part in the newly founded FIA GT3 European Championship , a motorsport racing series for Gran Turismo vehicles. This year Thomas Mutsch was both driver and operations manager of the Matech Competition team. His team mate in 2007 was Kenneth Heyer, the son of Hans Heyer . In the following year he won the team championship together with his driver colleagues Jürgen von Gartzen and Georg Nolte. In 2009 Thomas Mutsch developed a GT1 sports car prototype based on the Ford GT and became managing director of the tuner and team Matech Competition. With this team Mutsch then took part in the FIA GT1 World Championship in 2010 . This season, Thomas Mutsch and Formula 1 driver Romain Grosjean in the Ford GT in the FIA ​​GT1 championship already won the opening race (championship race) at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, in the qualifying race they both finished second In addition, another victory in the championship race followed at the third round of the championship at the Automotodrom Brno . After Grosjean left the Matech Competition team after a quarrel, his teammate was Richard Westbrook from England . With this he was able to celebrate three second places and one third place.

At the end of the 2010 season, Thomas Mutsch secured the runner-up in the world championship, despite the change of teammate during the season. To honor, he was allowed to enter himself in the Golden Book of his hometown Bitburg.

After Team Matech Competition withdrew from racing at the end of 2010, Thomas Mutsch was left without a cockpit. When a return to his parents' haulage company had almost been decided, Volkswagen Motorsport Director Kris Nissen contacted him. As part of the "GTI Edition 35" anniversary, three VW Golf24 were supposed to take part in the 24-hour race on the Nürburgring Nordschleife . Based on his experience, Thomas Mutsch was to be significantly involved in the development of the 440 hp turbo four-wheel drive. In the spring of 2011, three races in the VLN endurance championship served as test runs.

His teammates at the 24-hour race on the Nordschleife Nürburgring were Patrick Simon from Wiesbaden, Frederik Ekblom from Sweden and the current DTM driver Edoardo Mortara . In a total of two qualifying sessions, Thomas Mutsch was able to set the best time in the AT class in the first with 8,38.598 minutes. In the overall standings, this meant starting position 27 directly in front of the sister car of Peter Terting, Nicki Thiim, Franck Mailleux and René Rast .

When Edoardo Mortara collided with another vehicle when entering the pit lane on Saturday around 10:15 p.m. and then collided head-on with the barrier, the 24-hour race for Thomas Mutsch and his racing driver colleague came to an early end. In the meantime, Lambda Performance had taken over Match's bankruptcy estate and at the end of the year started with a Ford GT in the ADAC GT Masters , Mutsch shared the vehicle with Nicki Thiim in the session finale. With one retirement and a 21st place, however, there was no success.

At the beginning of 2015 Thomas Mutsch was hired as a pilot for the exclusive SCG 003 project of Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus. The American James Glickenhaus is behind the project and presented the newly developed GT racing car "SCG 003c" for the first time in 2015 at the Geneva Motor Show. In preparation for the 2015 24-hour race at the Nürburgring, the SCG team had several development tests and three test races in the VLN 2015. Due to his many years of knowledge of the Nordschleife, driver Thomas Mutsch was a valuable advisor and won the seventh VLN run the victory in the SP-X class (with his teammates Jeff Westphal and Andreas Simonssen).

In the 2015 Nürburgring 24-hour race itself, however, Mutsch was unable to start because the car was irreparably damaged in the first qualifying after an accident involving his team mate Ken Dobson. For 2016, after further test races, u. a. the second VLN run, where Mutsch won the SP-X class with his racing colleagues Jeff Westphal and Andreas Simonsen, is again aiming to take part in the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring.

statistics

Career stations

Le Mans results

year team vehicle Teammate Teammate placement Failure reason
2010 SwitzerlandSwitzerland Matech Competition Ford GT 1 FranceFrance Romain Grosjean SwitzerlandSwitzerland Jonathan Hirschi failure accident

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arno Wester: http://www.motorsport-aktuell.com/automobil/gt1-wm-matech-ford-trennt-sich-von-grosjean-2278251.html Status: August 18, 2010
  2. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Thomas von Fragstein: Archived copy ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Status: March 10, 2011
  4. ↑ http://www.blog.auto-24.net/2011/06/25/24h-rennen-nurburgring-2011-2-golf24-gti-unter-den-top-30/ Status: June 25, 2011
  5. ↑ Stefan Moser, Andre Dietzel: http://www.automobilsport.com/race-categories--24/race-categories--24,91587,Licht-und-Schatten-bei-Volkswagen,news.htm Status: 26. June 2011
  6. ^ Maximilian Graf: 24-hour race: Scuderia Glickenhaus hires Thomas Mutsch. In: SportsCar-Info.de. January 24, 2015, accessed May 18, 2016 .
  7. ↑ Marcus Schurig: The new SCG 003C from James Glickenhaus: UFO sighting at the Nürburgring. In: auto motor und sport. Retrieved May 18, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Andreas Haupt: Glickenhaus decimated after an accident: Impact at 200 km / h. In: auto motor und sport. Retrieved May 18, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Mutsch, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German racing driver
DATE OF BIRTH April 2nd 1979
PLACE OF BIRTH Bitburg in the Eifel