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|
 Willi Kauhsen on the right,Henri Pescarolo on the left atCircuit de Spa-Francorchamps in 1975 | |
| Nationality |  German |
|---|---|
| 24 Hours of Le Mans career | |
| Years | 1969,1970,1971 |
| Teams | Porsche System Engineering,Martini Racing |
| Best finish | 2nd (1970) |
| Class wins | 0 |
Willibert "Willi" Kauhsen (born 19 May 1939)[1] is a German former racing driver and racing team owner fromEschweiler inAachen,Germany.
Willi Kauhsen was a freight forwarder who went into racing in the 1960s. He regularly participated in touring and sports car races in the period 1963-1974. He became aEuropean Touring Car Championship winner driving anAbarth 1000TC in 1967. He became aPorsche factory driver and won the 84-hour-longMarathon de la Route in 1968 on a 170 hpPorsche 911S shared withHerbert Linge andDieter Glemser. He also wonSpa-Francorchamps 24 Hours in the same year, withErwin Kremer andHelmut Kelleners. In the late 1960s, he was a regular in long distance races.
He drove aPorsche 908L withRudi Lins forPorsche System Engineering (Porsche factory team) in1969 24 Hours of Le Mans and retired after 317 laps.
In 1970, he drove a Porsche 917LH forMartini Racing withGérard Larrousse atLe Mans, which finished second with 338 laps, 5 laps behind the winning 917KH ofHans Herrmann andRichard Attwood. For1971 24 Hours of Le Mans, he co-drove the famous Porsche 917/20 "Pink Pig" withReinhold Joest, but failed to finish.
Kauhsen started his own team,Willi Kauhsen Racing Team, for the 1972 season to participate inInterserie andCan-Am as a driver. In 1971,Jo Siffert was popular in theCan-Am series driving aGroup 7 Porsche 917/10, and Porsche competition directorRico Steinemann decided to update this car into 1972 spec. for Willi Kauhsen to drive,[2] which produced 1000 hp on the dyno, 900 hp in racing trim with twin turbo chargers.[3] He won theImola Interserie event in 1972, and finished second inZeltweg,Norisring,Keimola andHockenheim in the series.[4]
This car's Can-Am debut was at the 8th round (of 9 total) atLaguna Seca in 1972, in which Kauhsen qualified 8th and did not finish for a turbocharger trouble. For the last round atRiverside Raceway, Kauhsen qualified 9th and finished 8th.[5][6]
In 1973, he won the first two races in Interserie at theNürburgring and inImola, second place atSilverstone, 4th place at Norisring, 6th at Hockenheim, 4th atMisano and 4th at Hockenheim. For Can-Am, he qualified 5th and did not finish atMid-Ohio, which was the only appearance in 1973.[7]
For 1974, he won at InterserieSilverstone, enteredEmerson Fittipaldi for 6th at Nürburgring, 2nd place as the driver atKassel Calden, 4th place atCasale, 4th at Hockenheim, and did not appear in Can-Am.
Willi Kauhsen Racing Team gained fame in1975 World Sportscar Championship season when it representedAlfa Romeo to become the winner ofWorld Championship for Makes contested byGroup 5 Sports Cars (2-seaterracing prototypes) of under 3L displacement. Kauhsen made a deal for the team withAutodelta, who competed the previous 1974 season withAlfa Romeo 33TT12 somewhat unsuccessfully againstMatra, to act as the on-track contingent for the Alfa Romeo racing division, starting with two Tipo 33TT12 forArturo Merzario/Jacky Ickx andHenri Pescarolo/Derek Bell for the second round atMugello on 3 March.
The #1 Merzario duo finished the 1000 km race in second place behind anAlpine-Renault A441 Turbo ofJabouille/Larrousse, and the #2 Pescarolo car finished in the 4th place behind a turbocharged 6 cylinderPorsche 908/3 ofMüller/van Lennep.[8]The team dominated the rest of the season as follows:
1000 km Monza, 20 April[10]
1000 km Spa, 4 May[11]
1000 kmPergusa (Coppa Florio), 18 May[12]
1000 km Nürburgring, 1 June[13]
1000 km Zeltweg, 29 June[14]
6 Hours of Watkins Glen, 13 July[15]
The team did not participate in1975 24 Hours of Le Mans held on 14–15 June, which did not count toward World Championship for Makes due to the conflict betweenFIA andACO. Arturo Merzario, paired withNino Vaccarella, did win the 1975Targa Florio on 20 July driving an Alfa Romeo 33TT12, but the event no longer counted for the championship and the entry was made by Autodelta directly without involvement by the team.
The Kauhsen team started in Formula Two in 1976, purchasing Renault cars, and raced with an assortment of drivers with limited success. Kauhsen then entered the1979 Formula One season, spending 1978 designing their own chassis withCosworth engines. They participated in two World Championship Grands Prix withGianfranco Brancatelli, failing to qualify on both occasions, before the team was shut down.
| Sporting positions | ||
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| Preceded by | European Touring Car Champion (Div.1) 1967 | Succeeded by |
