- Klaus Niedzwiedz
Klaus Niedzwiedz (born
February 24 1951 inDortmund ,Germany ) is a former professional race driver and motoring journalist.Driver
His greatest success came in the 1980s, as a driver for Ford.
Niedzwiedz rose to promincence when driving a
Ford Capri forZakspeed in theDeutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft . The turbocharged 1.4 L engine from the Zakspeed Ford Capri was later enlarged for the 1.7 L "Super Capri". With this 500+hp car, Niedzwiedz holds the "eternal lap record" for Group 5touring car racing at the old 22.8 kmNürburgring with 7m06s, just 2 seconds slower than the F1 record byClay Regazzoni .The enlarged engine was also used in the
World Endurance Championship from 1982 onwards, in the a modifiedFord C100 . The Zakspeed-preparedGroup C machine was run by the works Ford Germany team withKlaus Ludwig ,Manfred Winkelhock andMarc Surer at the wheel, but the car was a midfielder at best, althoughJonathan Palmer andDesiré Wilson scored a 4th place overall the 1000km ofBrands Hatch in 1982. Ford Germany retracted their support and one car was sold to privateers, while the other chassis was evolved by Zakspeed into the C1/4 and the C1/8, making few appearances in international racing, but becoming a front-runner in the GermanInterserie , where it won the European championship in 1984 with Klaus Niedzwiedz.In 1982 and 1987, he was the winner at the
24 Hours Nürburgring , in both events withKlaus Ludwig . With aFord Sierra he was runner-up in theWorld Touring Car Championship of 1987 and theDeutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft of 1989.In 1998, he won the privateer title in the ADAC German
Supertouring car championship (Super Tourenwagen Cup ) with aOpel Vectra .In 2003, he won a
VLN race withPorsche 911 GT3 at theNürburgring Others events:
*Sauber Mercedes C9
*1988 24 Hours of Le Mans
*1982 24 Hours of Le Mans
*1981 24 Hours of Le Mans Journalist
Since 1984, he also works as a journalist and TV host in Germany, starting with moderation of
Sat.1 magazine "Treibstoff". Since 1997, he moderates "n-tv Motor".Tamiya Model
A
1/24 scale model of the 1979Ford Capri Zakspeed (model 24014) is represented as theD&W Klaus Niedzwiedz car, and actually comes complete with Niedzwiedz in team uniform.External links
* [http://www.n-tv.de/397.html bio at n-tv]
* (for his appearance in "Treibstoff")
* [http://www.zakspeed.de Zakspeed Website]
* [http://zakcapri.co.uk/ Profile of the highly successful Zakspeed-built Group 5 racing Capri]
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