Joachim
Winkelhock

Joachim Winkelhock was born in Waiblingen and began racing in 1979 in the one-make Renault 5 Cup. He won the Porsche Carrera Cup Germany in 1986, and in 1988, aged 28, he took both the German Formula Three Championship and the Formula Three European Cup. His brother Manfred and his nephew Markus were racing drivers too.

In 1989 he moved up to Formula One with the French team AGS, alongside Gabriele Tarquini. Winkelhock was entered seven times but failed to pre-qualify every time, so he never started a World Championship race. He was replaced by Yannick Dalmas during the season.

He then raced for BMW in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft, first with Bigazzi and then with Schnitzer. Over three years he won three races and finished sixth, seventh and eighth in the final standings. In 1990 and 1991 he won the Nürburgring 24 Hours for BMW and Schnitzer.

In 1993 he switched with Schnitzer to the British Touring Car Championship. He and Steve Soper won seven of the first eight rounds, four of them going to Winkelhock. He added only one more win in the second half of the year, but still took the title. He won the 1994 Asia-Pacific Touring Car Championship and the 1995 German Super Touring Cup. In 1995 he also won the Spa 24 Hours, and he took the touring car race at the Macau Grand Prix in 1994 and 1998. In 1999 he won the Le Mans 24 Hours in the Schnitzer-run BMW V12 LMR.

In 2000 he joined Opel in the revived DTM, won at the Norisring and finished fifth in the standings. After a 2003 season in which he scored a single point, he retired from racing at the age of 43.

Source: Wikipedia, “Joachim Winkelhock”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.