Heinz-Harald Frentzen | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Frentzen in 2006 | |
| Born | (1967-05-18)18 May 1967 (age 58) |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3 |
| Formula One World Championship career | |
| Nationality |  German |
| Active years | 1994–2003 |
| Teams | Sauber,Williams,Jordan,Prost,Arrows |
| Entries | 160 (156 starts) |
| Championships | 0 |
| Wins | 3 |
| Podiums | 18 |
| Careerpoints | 174 |
| Pole positions | 2 |
| Fastest laps | 6 |
| First entry | 1994 Brazilian Grand Prix |
| First win | 1997 San Marino Grand Prix |
| Last win | 1999 Italian Grand Prix |
| Last entry | 2003 Japanese Grand Prix |
| 24 Hours of Le Mans career | |
| Years | 1992,2008 |
| Teams | Lola,Aston Martin |
| Best finish | 13th(1992) |
| Class wins | 0 |
Heinz-Harald Frentzen (German pronunciation:[haɪ̯nt͡sˈha.ʁaltˈfʁeːn.t͡sn̩]; born 18 May 1967) is a German formerracing driver, who competed inFormula One from1994 to2003. Frentzen was runner-up in theFormula One World Drivers' Championship in1997 withWilliams,[a] and won threeGrands Prix across 10 seasons.
Born inMönchengladbach, Frentzen began his racing career aged 12 inkarting, winning several titles including thejunior direct-driveGerman Kart Championship. He progressed tojunior formulae in 1985, winning several races inFormula Ford before finishing runner-up in the1989 German Formula Three Championship amidst a title battle withKarl Wendlinger andMichael Schumacher. After three seasons of racing inJapan, Frentzen signed withSauber in1994, making his Formula One debut at theBrazilian Grand Prix. He remained at Sauber—nowunder Red Bull sponsorship—thefollowing season, achieving his maiden podium at theItalian Grand Prix. After scoring several point finishes in his1996 campaign, Frentzen joinedWilliams to replace reigningWorld ChampionDamon Hill alongsideJacques Villeneuve. Frentzen achieved his maiden victory at theSan Marino Grand Prix, taking several podiums as he finished runner-up to Villeneuve after Schumacher's collision with him at thelast race of the season saw his disqualification from the standings. Williams suffered their first winless season since1988 with theFW20, prompting his departure toJordan in a swap withRalf Schumacher. Frentzen achieved further wins at theFrench andItalian Grands Prix in1999, finishing third in the World Drivers' Championship toMika Häkkinen andEddie Irvine. After struggling for form in2000, Frentzen was dropped by Jordan after the2001 British Grand Prix, swapping withJean Alesi to joinProst. After Prost went bankrupt at the end of the2001 season, Frentzen spent two seasons withArrows and Sauber before retiring at the conclusion of2003, having achieved three wins, two pole positions, six fastest laps and 18 podiums in Formula One.
Outside of Formula One, Frentzen competed full-time in theDeutsche Tourenwagen Masters from2004 to2006, as well as competing in theall-starSpeedcar Series in both of its seasons. Frentzen entered two editions of the24 Hours of Le Mans in1992 and2008, finishing fourth in class at the latter withAston Martin.
Frentzen was born on 18 May 1967 in the West German city ofMönchengladbach (North Rhine-Westphalia) to Heinrich-Harald Frentzen (1933–2012), a German entrepreneur and his Spanish wife Angela Lladosa (1937–2020). He has two sisters (Sylvia, a theologian, and Sonja, a teacher) and two half-sisters (Samantha, a former student, and Nicole-Nadine). His family was connected to motorsport; his father raced between 1950 and 1957. Frentzen's parents divorced when he was eight years old and his father subsequently married Mexican-born Arazelli while Angela returned to Spain.[1]
Frentzen begankarting at the age of twelve, after his father bought him his first kart, and made an extraordinarily successful start.[2] In 1981, aged fourteen, Frentzen won the German Junior Kart Championship. Two years later, Frentzen entered the CIK Asia Pacific Championships in Australia driving a Dino although he did not finish.[3] In 1984, he finished runner-up in the 100cc class.[4] He was funded and supported by his father—afuneral director—who also acted as both team boss and head mechanic.
In 1985, Frentzen moved into car racing by entering the GermanFormula Ford 2000 series. After two seasons in Formula Ford, he was runner-up in the 1987 series, despite not participating in all races. Frentzen progressed to German Formula Opel Lotus in 1988 in the Junior Team of former Formula One driverJochen Mass, who had been impressed by Frentzen's performances in Formula Ford. Frentzen was champion of the German series in his first year and his teammate Marco Werner finished third in the championship. He also participated in the Formula Opel Lotus Euroseries, where he finished 6th in the championship, scoring 56 points.
The next step was the GermanFormula 3 Championship in 1989, where Frentzen competed against many future stars includingMichael Schumacher andKarl Wendlinger. At the time, there was a big push byBernie Ecclestone to have a German driver in theFormula One World Championship, so the ONS (the German National Motorsports committee) decided to support both Frentzen and Schumacher. The ONS put up the reward of a Formula One test to the driver who first would take a victory in a Formula 3 race. This ultimately ended up being Schumacher, in a controversial race atZeltweg,Austria in which Frentzen claimed Schumacher had forced him off the track; however, Schumacher did not get the Formula One test drive anyway.Karl Wendlinger won the German Formula 3 Championship and Frentzen became joint runner-up with Schumacher (the two finishing on identical points totals).
In 1990, Frentzen entered theInternational Formula 3000 series driving forEddie Jordan Racing and was partnered byEddie Irvine. Frentzen finished the season 16th in the championship, scoring 3 points. In the same year, he also participated in the World Sports Prototype Championship driving a Mercedes-Benz C11 scoring one podium and six points. In 1991, Frentzen continued to drive in International Formula 3000, moving to Vortex Motorsport and scored five points in that year's series.
In 1994, Frentzen was given a Formula One drive byPeter Sauber in aMercedes powered car, as teammate to fellow Mercedes junior Wendlinger, who had made it to F1 in1991 and was in his second year with the team. Frentzen began the year strongly, qualifying fifth for his début inBrazil (albeit spinning off in the race) and scoring his first points with fifth in thePacific Grand Prix. He was then thrust into the role ofde facto team leader after Wendlinger crashed during qualifying for the fourth round of the season inMonaco, leaving him with severe head injuries that ruled him out for the remainder of the year. Frentzen had the measure of substitute team-matesAndrea de Cesaris andJJ Lehto, scoring points on three further occasions and finishing thirteenth in the World Drivers' Championship. A particularly noteworthy performance came in theEuropean Grand Prix atJerez, where he qualified fifth and ran third in the race. The team's decision to run a one-stop refuelling strategy caused his pace to suffer and he slipped back to sixth by the finish.
Sauber's performance was not sufficient to keep the partnership with Mercedes alive: the marque moved toMcLaren, leaving the team to acquire a supply ofFord V8 engines for the1995 season instead. The engines had poweredMichael Schumacher to the World Drivers' Championship in 1994, but were now completely outpowered by the V10 and V12 engines used by the leading teams. TheSauber C14 chassis was also uncompetitive at the start of the year, but Frentzen produced consistent performances to finish in the points on multiple occasions. The performance of the car improved with development throughout the year, culminating in Frentzen taking the team's first podium finish at theItalian Grand Prix and qualifying a season's-best fifth inPortugal. He also easily had the measure of his team-mates: first, the returning Wendlinger, who was then replaced byWilliams test driverJean-Christophe Boullion mid-season. Frentzen's performance against the latter was particularly significant in the team ultimately signing him to drive for the1997 season. He finished ninth in the World Drivers' Championship with 15 points.
In1996, Frentzen was joined byJohnny Herbert and Ford upgraded to a V10 engine configuration, promising more power. The unit was still lacking in performance compared to the top teams, and was also less reliable than the trusty V8 had been the previous season. Frentzen was therefore limited to just three points-scoring finishes—inMonaco,Spain andJapan—whilst Herbert was also closer to him in performance than his team-mates in previous years had been. He finished the season twelfth in the World Drivers' Championship with seven points; by this stage, his move to Williams for 1997 had been announced.
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For the1997 season, Frentzen replaced1996 championDamon Hill at theWilliams-Renault team. At thefirst race of the season, Frentzen took the lead at the first corner and remained there until his first pit stop. He was running second late in the race when a brake disc exploded, throwing him off the circuit and into retirement.[5] He took his first win at the fourth race of the year atSan Marino. Frentzen followed this with his first pole position of his career at the following round inMonaco, but did not finish the race. After inconsistency marked the first half of the season, Frentzen finished the second half of season with six points scoring performances including five consecutive podiums. Despite eight front-row starts and seven podium finishes, Frentzen was generally out-performed by team-mateJacques Villeneuve, out-qualifying the French-Canadian only four times during the season. Frentzen was unable to secure another victory and finished third in the driver's championship standings with 42 points to teammate Villeneuve's 81. He would be elevated to second after the disqualification ofMichael Schumacher.
Renault discontinued factory support for the Williams engines in 1998. Williams also lost chief designerAdrian Newey to McLaren during the off-season. Consequently the team suffered a loss of performance compared to eventual title winnersMcLaren and Williams' 1997 title-rivalsFerrari. Frentzen would start the season with a podium atAlbert Park. This would be the highlight of Frentzen's year, as he was unable to repeat the podium, and was once again out-performed by team mate Jacques Villenuve. Frentzen finished the season placed 7th in the championship with 17 points. Frentzen would depart Williams during the off-season after two difficult years, with the time considered disappointing due to difficulty adjusting to the different atmosphere at Williams compared to Sauber and disagreements with head engineerPatrick Head.
In 1999 Frentzen moved toJordan in a straight swap with Ralf Schumacher and enjoyed success in theMugen-Honda powered car, with two race wins and scoring points in the majority of races. During the1999 European Grand Prix he was leading after a pole position and with both Häkkinen and Irvine outside of the points (Häkkinen because he pitted for wets during a very very short shower period and Irvine because of a very slow pit stop where the rear right tyre was not ready in time) and with both outside the points and equal on 60 points and with him on 50, if positions would not change, he would be equal on points with both Häkkinen and Irvine with 2 races to go. But on the 32nd lap, his Jordan stopped. Häkkinen went on to recover and finish 5th. Before the1999 Malaysian Grand Prix he was 12 points behind championship leader Häkkinen. But his title dreams were dashed on that race, with Frentzen finishing 6th, with Häkkinen and Irvine finishing 3rd and 1st respectively. With 1 race to go (and 10 points still available for drivers) Frentzen had 51 points, 19 less than championship leader Irvine. Frentzen finished third in the Driver Championship (22 points behind the world champion Mika Häkkinen and was regarded by many[who?] as the driver of the year.[citation needed] After the strong season Frentzen was considered as a favourite to challenge for the championship in 2000.[6]
2000 and 2001 were critical years as Honda also began to supply the BAR team, resulting in a race between the teams as to who would secure the regular engine supply. In 2000 Frentzen managed two podiums, which were the best results for the team, but Jordan still finished down the grid and, crucially, behind BAR. After some low points finishes, injury, disagreements about the technical direction of the team (Frentzen reportedly offered to pay for the changes to fix the car, out of his own pocket)[citation needed] and then a string of retirements halfway through the 2001 season, Jordan sacked Frentzen and replaced him withJean Alesi. Eight years laterEddie Jordan revealed that the termination of Frentzen's contract was a move to appease Honda and sign the Japanese driverTakuma Sato to race for the team.[7] Frentzen subsequently took Alesi's place at the strugglingProst team, and managed to qualify fourth at Spa, before the outfit collapsed financially at the end of the season.[8]
On 30 December 2001, Frentzen was signed byArrows for the2002 season.[9] He scored points on two occasions and outpaced both the Jaguars who ran the same engine. The team went bankrupt in August and Frentzen was released from his contract. Back with Sauber for 2003, after a one-off drive replacingFelipe Massa at the2002 United States Grand Prix, Frentzen was evenly matched with his highly rated teammateNick Heidfeld and scored a final podium finish in the penultimate race of the year in the United States.
For 2004, Frentzen moved to the GermanDeutsche Tourenwagen Masters saloon car series to drive forOpel, encouraged by the success achieved in the series by fellow F1 refugeeJean Alesi. HisOpel Vectra was not a competitive car, and he was regularly outpaced by not only theAudi andMercedes drivers but also by his Opel teammates, eventually finishing the season 14th in the championship standings. He remained in the DTM with Opel for the 2005 season and finished the year in 8th as best-placed Opel driver, with his best result a 3rd place from pole position atBrno in theCzech Republic.
After Opel withdrew after the 2005 season, Frentzen joined Audi for 2006. He would finish 3rd at the first race of the season at Hockenheim and again at the 8th race of the season at Barcelona. Frentzen finished the season 7th in the final standings and quit the team stating he had "no support from the team".
In April 2008, Frentzen drove the Bahrain race in theSpeedcar Series of the 2007/2008 season and later on joined the Speedcar Series for the complete 2008/2009 season. He competed in the24 Hours of Le Mans forAston Martin Racing driving one of the two factoryAston Martin DBR9s withKarl Wendlinger and Andrea Piccini in the GT1 class. His team finished 4th in class and 16th overall.
Also in 2008, Frentzen built the HHF Hybrid Concept Car which he entered in the24 Hours Nürburgring with his own team. The chassis was a boughtGumpert Apollo road car with a3.3 litre V8 bi-turbo with 520 hp and an electric motor with approximately 136 hp. Frentzen finished the race but was not classified due to two conventional gearbox failures.
In 2011, Frentzen won a special one-off "ROC Legends" race againstHans-Joachim Stuck,Marc Duez andStig Blomqvist as part of the2011 Race of Champions. In 2012, Frentzen competed in theADAC GT Masters season with aCallaway CompetitionCorvette Z06, and returned to the series in2014 with aHTP MotorsportMercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3.
Frentzen has been described as a loyal driver.[10] The monthly magazineF1 Racing observed that the key issue for Frentzen was finding the appropriate settings for his car which was done by himself.[11] In his autobiographyAn Independent Man,Eddie Jordan said that Frentzen did a "great job" at driving theJordan 199.[12] After leaving Sauber at the end of 2003, BBC Sport described Frentzen as a driver who "never quite made the most of a brilliant natural talent".[13] Sauber team principalPeter Sauber said in 2005 that Frentzen was the most important driver for his team but admitted that the driver needed to work in a specific atmosphere and referred to his time at Williams where he was in conflict with technical directorPatrick Head.[14]
Frentzen appeared on an episode in the 29th series of British motoring showTop Gear in 2020, in which he appeared as a rival for the presenters in a Germany versus Britain challenge.[15]
In the early 1990s, Frentzen was in a relationship withCorinna Betsch.[16][17] After their relationship ended, Corinna later married fellow Formula 1 driver Michael Schumacher. In 1999, Frentzen married Tanja Nigge.[18][19] Together they have three children.[20]
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(key) (Races inbold indicate pole position) (Races initalics indicate fastest lap)
| Year | Entrant | Engine | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | DC | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | Team JSK Baumanagement | Volkswagen | HOC 11 | NÜR 6 | AVU 5 | BRN 9 | ZEL 2 | HOC 1 | WUN 1 | HOC 2 | DIE 1 | NÜR 7 | NÜR Ret | HOC 2 | 2nd | 163 |
Sources:[22] | ||||||||||||||||
(key) (Races inbold indicate pole position) (Racesinitalics indicate fastest lap)
| Year | Entrant | Chassis | Engine | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | DC | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Eddie Jordan Racing | Reynard 90D | Mugen | DON Ret | SIL Ret | PAU Ret | JER 17 | MNZ Ret | PER 5 | HOC 6 | BRH 7 | BIR Ret | BUG Ret | NOG DNQ | 18th | 3 |
| 1991 | Vortex Motorsport | Lola T91/50 | Mugen | VAL Ret | PAU Ret | JER 12 | MUG 6 | PER 5 | HOC DNQ | BRH 12 | SPA 5 | BUG Ret | NOG Ret | 14th | 5 | |
(key) (Races inbold indicate pole position) (Races initalics indicate fastest lap)
| Year | Entrant | Chassis | Engine | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | DC | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | Team Nova | Lola T92/50 | Mugen | SUZ | FUJ | MIN | SUZ | AUT | SUG | FUJ | FUJ | SUZ 6 | FUJ 7 | SUZ 3 | 14th | 5 |
| 1993 | Team Nova | Lola T93/50 | Mugen | SUZ Ret | FUJ Ret | MIN Ret | SUZ 8 | SUG 14 | FUJ 2 | SUZ 10 | FUJ 12 | SUZ 5 | 9th | 8 | ||
Source:[24] | ||||||||||||||||
(key) (races inbold indicate pole position; races initalics indicate fastest lap)
† Did not finish, but was classified as he had completed more than 90% of the race distance.
(key) (Races inbold indicate pole position) (Races initalics indicate fastest lap)
| Year | Team | Car | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | Pos. | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 | DTM Junior Team | Mercedes 190E 2.5-16 Evo II | ZOL 1 | ZOL 2 | HOC 1 | HOC 2 | NÜR 1 | NÜR 2 | WUN 1 | WUN 2 | NÜR 1 | NÜR 2 | NOR 1 | NOR 2 | DON 1 | DON 2 | DIE 1 | DIE 2 | ALE 1 | ALE 2 | AVU 1 | AVU 2 | HOC 1 DNS | HOC 2 DNS | NC | 0 |
| 2004 | OPC Team Holzer | Opel Vectra GTS V8 2004 | HOC 11 | EST 12 | ADR 12 | LAU Ret | NOR Ret | SHA 7‡ | NÜR Ret | OSC 14 | ZAN Ret | BRN 6 | HOC 12 | 14th | 3 | |||||||||||
| 2005 | OPC Team Holzer | Opel Vectra GTS V8 2005 | HOC Ret | LAU 14 | SPA 15 | BRN 3 | OSC 14 | NOR 6 | NÜR 12 | ZAN 3 | LAU 7 | IST Ret | HOC 18 | 8th | 17 | |||||||||||
| 2006 | Abt Sportsline | Audi A4 DTM 2006 | HOC 3 | LAU 13 | OSC 4 | BRH 17 | NOR 11 | NÜR 6 | ZAN 5 | CAT 3 | BUG 10 | HOC 14 | 7th | 24 | ||||||||||||
‡ A non-championship one-off race was held in 2004 at the streets of Shanghai, China.
| Year | Team | Co-Drivers | Car | Class | Laps | Pos. | Class Pos. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 |  Euro Racing | Charles Zwolsman, Sr. Shunji Kasuya | Lola T92/10-Judd | C1 | 271 | 13th | 6th |
| 2008 |  Aston Martin Racing |  Andrea Piccini Karl Wendlinger | Aston Martin DBR9 | GT1 | 339 | 16th | 4th |
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