AUSTRIA'S FORMULA ONE HISTORY: Christian Klien

This guy from the most western part of Austria is so far the latest of our F1 hopefuls:

Christian Klien (1983)
Klien had his first successes in karting as did quite a number of F1 racers. Moving through different classes of racing such as the Formula BMW Junior championship, the Formula Renault championship where he became German champion in 2002.

From there Klien climbed to the F3 Euro Series in 2003 and won four races, taking six pole positions and nine podium finishes as well, which was enough to get a second position in the championship and to attract enough attention to obtain his biggest promotion for 2004: a place as a regular driver in Formula One at Jaguar. With the blessing of Jaguar sponsor Red Bull, Klien enjoyed a solid first season in Formula One, scoring a solid sixth position at Spa Francorchamps.

With Jaguar Racing being taken over Red Bull Racing for the 2005 season, Klien went head to head with F3000 Champion Tonio Liuzzi for the second seat in the squad alongside David Coulthard and competed in all but four rounds of the 2005 championship for the team. Klien finished in seventh and eighth positions for the squad in Australia and Malaysia respectively while an electrical fault ended his Bahrain race before it even got underway. Liuzzi took over the ride for the next for races, with Klien returning to the driving seat in Montreal.

He would complete the season and secured a fine fifth position at the season finale in China. No longer a rookie; Klien was looking forward to a full season with Red Bull Ferrari in 2006. 2006 was a season to forget for Klien. The season started well enough with an eighth place finish in Bahrain, but he would have to wait another ten races before he would score another championship point. By this time relations between Klien and the Red Bull management had become strained and the drinks firm had offered a fully funded Champ Car ride for the 2007 season having opted to retain Coulthard and recruit Mark Webber for its 2007 F1 campaign. Honda recruited Klien as test and reserve driver for the 2007 season.Christian however made clear that his desire was to return to competition.

With the blessing of Honda he tested with Spyker mid-season and then again with the newly renamed team - Force India - at the end of the season. Klien lost out to veteran Giancarlo Fisichella for the race seat while former team-mate Tonio Liuzzi landed the testing role. Klien has proven his ability to bounce back and a few weeks later it was announced that the Austrian will be the test and reserve driver for the BMW Sauber squad in 2008.

AUSTRIA'S FORMULA ONE HISTORY: Alex Wurz

Alex Wurz, son of former rallycross champion Franz Wurz, took the BMX championship in 1988 before turning his attention to four wheels. After a couple of years in karting, the Austrian moved up through Formula Ford and the German F3 series. By 1996, Wurz was busy in various categories of motorsport, the highlight being the Le Mans win in the Joest Porsche WSC95. Tests followed with Sauber and Benetton and his Formula One career was firmly on track. Taking a testing role with Benetton Renault in 1997, Wurz got the call-up to the race seat when race regular Gerhard Berger was sidelined due to illness. He made his F1 debut in Montreal retiring with a gearbox problem and a spin followed in France. However, a strong performance at the British Grand Prix saw him take his first podium position as he chased team-mate Jean Alesi across the line.
With Berger back to full fitness, Wurz sat out the remainder of the season before signing up as race driver with the team. Wurz would finish eighth in the standings in his first full season with fourth places in Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Canada and Britain, and a fifth in France. His season was remembered mostly for his battle with Michael Schumacher at Monaco and his spectacular roll at the start of the Canadian Grand Prix. While 1998 was a good season for Wurz, the following year was disappointing with two-points paying finishes. 2000 saw Wurz in the points just once at Imola and the Austrian was dropped from the line-up at the end of the season.

A new career with McLaren Mercedes followed as he took the testing option with the team. 2005 McLaren drafted Wurz in to replace the injured Juan Pablo Montoya. A confident and aggressive race from Wurz showed that he had lost none of his pace displayed back in 1998 and he brought the McLaren home in third position to claim the second podium position of his career. The race outing was a one-off at McLaren and Wurz opted to leave the team at the end of the season to take a testing role with Williams Cosworth. The move paid off as Wurz teamed up alongside Nico Rosberg at Williams in 2007. Although Wurz took third position in a rather chaotic race in Montreal and a fourth place finish at Nurburgring, the season as a whole was a disappointment with Wurz struggling in qualifying in particular. Following the Chinese Grand Prix in which he finished 12th, the team promoted test driver Kazuki Nakajima to the race team and Wurz sat out the season finale in Brazil stating that he was to retire from active competition in Formula One. For 2008, Wurz joins the Honda team as test driver. Alex Wurz will also be in Singapore tuning the Honda for the race.

AUSTRIA’S FORMULA ONE HISTORY: Gerhard Berger

Gerhard Berger (born 1959)
Gerhard had started out racing AlfaSuds before jumping via a few Formula Ford races into the German and European F3 Championships. By 1984 he was a leading contender, and his performances earned him a chance with the ATS F1 team in his home GP in Austria. Berger had hurt his neck in an accident, but said nothing and dragged himself to a test at Zandvoort.

In four races, he proved himself erratic but fast, and soon switched to Arrows and its BMW-powered team the following year. With Benetton in 1986 he made full use of the turbocharged four cylinder BMW's prodigious power, and won his first GP, in Mexico, after a canny performance on Pirelli's tires.

Berger’s spells with Ferrari and McLaren earned him another eight victories and the reputation as a fast and safe driver who, while perhaps not quite in the Senna/Prost/Mansell mold, was quite capable of fighting at the front in the right machine.
After the fire at Imola in 1989, when Gerhard crashed his Ferrari at the same Tamburello corner that would later claim Senna, he was back racing within weeks. The depth and honesty of the emotions he explained in the aftermath of the deaths of Ratzenberger (another Austrian diver) and Senna were indications of a pure heart. When Berger was in the cockpit, a dedicated professional took over, and Benetton had good cause to appreciate that in a difficult 1996 season. One year on, as he was suffering from debilitating illness and his father was killed in a flying accident, Berger returned to the cockpit at Hockenheim and annihilated his opposition. It was his final victory, and at the end of the season he retired. Berger went on to to become the manager of BMW's competition program in F1 with Williams but in 2004 he left that role. At the start of 2006 it was announced that he had become a 50% shareholder in Red Bull's Scuderia Toro Rosso.

AUSTRIA’S FORMULA ONE HISTORY: Niki Lauda

Andreas Nikolaus “Niki” Lauda was born to a well-to-do Vienna family on February 22, 1949. Lauda became interested in motor racing from an innate interest in automobiles dating to a young age. When he was twelve, visiting relatives were letting him park their cars. He got hold of, in his early teens, a 1949 Volkswagen Beetle convertible in which he would ride roughshod over a relative's estate. He entered his first race, a hill climb, in a Cooper in 1968 taking second in class. Thereafter, despite his father's insistence that he stay away from racing, he competed in hill climbs and later Formula Vee. He did his stint hauling a Formula 3 car on a trailer to races around Europe. In the course of this he scared himself into a certain amount of sanity, and, in 1971, abandoned the wildness of Formula 3 to take the plunge on his own in Formula 2.
In 1974, his first year with Prancing Horse, Lauda scored the first of his 26 F1 victories.


He, as well as teammate Clay Regazzoni, with good cars
under them, challenged for the championship. Lauda took it in his second year with the team in a car that was technically far superior to any of the competition. He had 5 wins and a huge margin over second place. Niki called 1975 "the unbelievable year."
But things must go wrong in motor races as well. Especially in these years cars didn’t come with mono-cocks and other life saving safety features yet racing involved powerful machines carrying extraordinary levels of kinetic energy. So when something does go wrong, people could get badly hurt or killed. Niki Lauda suffered severe injuries in the 1976 German Grand Prix at the old Nurburgring, in the process setting up what may have been the most dramatic championship that F1 has yet seen.
Lauda had taken a significant early lead in the points despite having cracked ribs as a result of rolling a tractor while mowing his Salzburg property.
F1's reigning playboy, James Hunt, was more than 20 points down to the Austrian by the German Grand Prix.

Lauda's Ferrari unexplainably swerved off to the right, impacted an embankment, bounced back across the track, was collected by Brett Lunger and caught fire. Several drivers including Lunger, Guy Edwards and a fearless Arturo Merzario managed to extract Lauda from the burning wreck. Although he was able to stand after the accident, it soon became evident that his injuries were grave.
Hot, toxic gases had damaged the inside of his lungs and his blood. His helmet had come partially adrift and he had suffered severe burns to his head. He lapsed into a coma. For a period of time his life was despaired of. However, he rallied and, in a show of courage that is difficult to overstate, was back in a Ferrari cockpit at speed six weeks after the accident (he later revealed that at the time he was virtually petrified with fear).

Lauda's return to competition at Monza produced an amazing 4th place and 3 points. An impressive run in both North American races pulled Hunt to within 3 points of Lauda with only Fuji left on the calendar. The race started in a monumental downpour, and after 2 laps Lauda abandoned saying it was crazy to drive in such conditions. He was probably correct, but he was probably also still affected by his Nurburgring accident. In the event, the rain soon slacked, and Hunt finished third despite a late tire change, collecting 4 points to take the title.
In 1977 Lauda cruised to his second championship with Ferrari despite winning only 3 races. After some bad seasons, 2 years of hibernating from F1 and starting his airline business Niki returned in 1982 for, by his own admission, financial reasons and signed up with Ron Dennis and McLaren to partner John Watson for plenty of money.
It didn't take long for him to reacquaint himself with winning. At Long Beach he won in only his third race since returning. He also won at Brands Hatch that season. '83 was a no win year but '84 ended with Lauda back at the top of F1. He won the '84 championship by a mere 1/2 pt.
His second and final departure from F1, at Adelaide in 1985, was typical of his whole approach to racing and to life - quick, with no frills and no glance over the shoulder. He was flying his McLaren down the long straight when his front brakes had failed him and he was skittering into the runoff area and up against the wall. The next after that he was out of his car disappearing behind the barrier without a look back and with the next flight out on his mind.
Niki Lauda is still into airline business and a F1 commentator for a German TV station. The red cap he's been wearing since after his accident became his trademark.

Lauda will be in Singapore for our race of course and attending President Nathan’s dinner.

Ferrari-Boss Luca di Montezemolo does'nt like Singapur F1 track

Luca di Montezemolo the big Ferrari Boss mentioned in an interview during test runs in Monza that he doesn't like the new race courses because it's difficult to overtake! "Dear Mr. Montezemolo, you haven't even been in Singapore to see our new Marina Bay race track nor has anyone raced there, yet from a distance of more than 8,000 miles you are able to judge which courses you like or you don't? What are you afraid off? That McLaren/Mercedes has better cars than your team and you're looking for excuses? Why don't you get your engineers to build cars that can also win on tracks that are narrower and more difficult to overtake."
I'm very disappointed and so will many Singapore-F1 enthusiasts and many of the Ferrai owners be. We probably should cheers for 0ther teams?
Maybe we should use another brand in the header of our blog besides Red Bull.

AUDI R8 PRESENTATION A BIG DISAPPOINTMENT

.........of course not for the VIP's! They had great spots which is fine with me. But there might have been potential future customers as well.

The good news first: The car is a beauty as most Audis are.

However the location was the worst that could have been choosen for the presentation .
There were just too many pillars, trees and even a bus around the Marriott blocking the view for spectators and quite a few showed up. Another obstacle was the events company's huge elevated box for the mixstation for sound and video which was as big as for some Rock Concerts. The biggest disappointment though was the "RACE" down Orchard Road, which was actually only a rolling along Orchard, guarded by police in midst of the Sunday morning traffic.

They probably should sack their PR guy, because the newspapers created a hype the days before only mentioning Marriott as a starting point and Raffles as Pit stop with a start time at 9am. However no word that most action would actually happen at the Marriott and will last at least 1 hour before they "zoom down" (Straits Time) Orchard Road.
Unfortunately I didn't read the fine print within the Audi advertisement in 'The Sunday Times'! I'm like a lot of my friends and we can't be bothered with advertisements, we just flip pages until we are in the sports section. This is what we're really interested in. But it seemed many more interested people are facing the same problem since they've been waiting with their kids along Orchard Road as well.
So we went to Orchard (in front of Paragon) to get the best spot to catch the Audi spectacle of 3 old and new cars "racing" down Orchard. Time passed by, many cabs and buses as well but no Audi's at all. Dozens of folks with cameras ready had been waiting.
After more than an hour we gave up our perfect spot already quite frustrated and walked towards Marriott and there they were the crowd, drivers and cars.
When the host announced the start of the "race" we rushed back to "our" spot for best views and photos.
My camera was ready for the show, from far I saw blue police lights and suddenly, but see yourself what happened: Can you see the Audis ? No? Just look through the bus window? Well that was how much we saw from the "race"! No more words are needed I guess!