Saturday, May 18, 2019

Heinz-Harald Frentzen Born In West Germany - May 18, 1967

May 18, 1967
Heinz-Harald Frentzen
(Photo;Ger1axg at the German language Wikipedia Commons)
Born in Mönchengladbach, West Germany.
Also known as 'HHF', he was the runner-up in the 1997 Formula One World Drivers' Championship, driving for Williams. A veteran of 156 Formula one starts, Frentzen also drove for Sauber, Jordan, Prost and Arrows. He had a total of 3 wins, 18 podiums and 174 world championship points from 1994-2003.

 For 2004, Frentzen moved to the German Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters saloon car series to drive for Opel, encouraged by the success achieved in the series by fellow F1 refugee Jean Alesi. Unfortunately his Opel Vectra was not a competitive car, and he was regularly outpaced by not only the Audi and Mercedes drivers but also by his Opel teammates, eventually finishing the season 14th in the championship standings. However 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 at Brno in the Czech 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 the Speedcar Series of the 2007/2008 season and later on joined the Speedcar Series for the complete 2008/2009 season.

He competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans for Aston Martin Racing driving one of the two factory Aston Martin DBR9s with Karl 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 the 24 Hours Nürburgring with his own Team. The chassis was a bought Gumpert Apollo road car with a 3.3 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 against Hans-Joachim Stuck, Marc Duez and Stig Blomqvist as part of the 2011 Race of Champions.

In 2012, Frentzen competed in the ADAC GT Masters season with a Callaway Competition Corvette Z06, and returned to the series in 2014 with a HTP Motorsport Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3.

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