Markus
Winkelhock

Markus Winkelhock was born in Stuttgart in 1980. His father, Manfred Winkelhock, raced in Formula One, and his uncle Joachim Winkelhock was also a racing driver. He won races in Formula König, German Formula Renault and the Formula Renault Eurocup before joining German Formula 3 in 2001. He finished fifth that year and seventh in 2002, then fourth in 2003 when the series became the Formula 3 Euro Series. He raced in the DTM without scoring a point in 2004 and won three races in the World Series by Renault in 2005.

Winkelhock was a test and reserve driver for Midland in 2006. For 2007 the team signed him again, by then renamed Spyker. After Christijan Albers left, he took the Spyker seat for the 2007 European Grand Prix, his only Formula One start. He began from the back of the grid, but wet tyres put him in the lead on the first lap and he led for six laps. After the red flag and the restart on a drying track, he dropped back and retired on lap 15 with a hydraulic failure. Sakon Yamamoto drove for the team for the rest of the season.

From 2008 to 2010 Winkelhock raced in the DTM for Team Rosberg. In 2012 he won the FIA GT1 World Championship with Mercedes. As an Audi factory driver, he won the Nürburgring 24 Hours in 2017 and became Intercontinental GT Challenge champion.

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