Klaus Niedzwiedz

Klaus Niedzwiedz (born February 24, 1951 in Dortmund, Germany) is a former professional race driver and motoring journalist.

Driver

Team mate Klaus Ludwig's 1981 Group 5 Zakspeed Ford Capri at the Auto & Technik Museum in Sinsheim, Germany

Eggenberger Motorsport Ford Sierra RS500

His greatest success came in the 1980s as a driver for Ford.

Niedzwiedz rose to prominence when driving a Ford Capri for Zakspeed in the Deutsche 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 established in 1982 the "eternal lap record" for Group 5 touring car racing at the old 22.8 km Nürburgring with 7:08.59, just 10 seconds slower than the F1 record of 6:58.60 set by Niki Lauda in 1975 (see: Nürburgring lap times).

During the 1982 season, Niedzwiedz also drove in the World Endurance Championship for Zakspeed, in a Ford C100. The Zakspeed-prepared Group C machine was run by the works Ford Germany team with Klaus Ludwig, Manfred Winkelhock and Marc Surer at the wheel, but the car was a midfielder at best, although Jonathan Palmer and Desiré Wilson scored a 4th place overall the 1,000 km of Brands 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 German Interserie, 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 with Klaus Ludwig. Driving an Eggenberger Motorsport Ford Sierra he was runner-up in the World Touring Car Championship of 1987 and the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft of 1989.

Between 1987 and 1996, Niedzwiedz drove six times in the Bathurst 1000. After driving for Eggenberger Motorsport in 1987, he drove Eggenberger built Sierra RS500s for Allan Moffat Racing in 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1992.^[1][2][3][4] He returned in 1996 to drive a Ford Falcon EB.

Niedzwiedz also drove for Allan Moffat Racing at the 1989 Fuji 500^[5] and 1990 Sandown 500.^[3]

In 1998, he won the privateer title in the ADAC German Supertouring car championship (Super Tourenwagen Cup) with an Opel Vectra.

In 2003, he won a VLN race with Porsche 911 GT3 at the Nürburgring

Other events:

• 1981 24 Hours of Le Mans
• 1982 24 Hours of Le Mans
• 1988 24 Hours of Le Mans

Journalist

Since 1984, Niedzwiedz has worked as a journalist and television 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 1979 Ford Capri Zakspeed (model 24014) is represented as the D&W Klaus Niedzwiedz car, and is complete with Niedzwiedz in team uniform.

Career Results

Results sourced from Driver Database and History of Touring Car Racing.^[6][7]

Complete World Touring Car Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Team	Car	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	DC	Points
1987	Ford Texaco Racing Team	Ford Sierra RS Cosworth	MNZ DSQ	JAR ovr:5 cls:2	DIJ ovr:3 cls:1	NUR ovr:1 cls:1	SPA Ret							2nd	268
		Ford Sierra RS500						BNO ovr:1 cls:1	SIL ovr:6 cls:1	BAT DSQ	CLD ovr:12 cls:8	WEL ovr:1 cls:1	FJI ovr:1 cls:1

Silverstone and Calder show outright results for all cars. For teams registered for WTCC points, Niedzwiedz finished 5th in points and 1st in class at Silverstone and 5th in points and 2nd in class at Calder

Complete Asia-Pacific Touring Car Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Team	Car	1	2	3	4	DC	Points
1988	Allan Moffat Enterprises	Ford Sierra RS500	BAT Ret	WEL	PUK	FJI	NC	0

Complete 24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
1981	Joest Racing	Reinhold Joest Dale Whittington	Porsche 908/80	S +2.0	80	DNF	DNF
1982	Ford-Werke AG Zakspeed	Manfred Winkelhock	Ford C100	C	71	DNF	DNF
1988	Team Sauber Mercedes	Kenny Acheson	Sauber C9	C1	-	DNS	DNS

Complete Spa 24 Hours results

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
1986	Eggenberger Motorsport	Steve Soper Siegfried Müller, Jr. Mike Thackwell	Ford Sierra XR4Ti	Div.3	475	7th	6th
1987	Eggenberger Motorsport	Klaus Ludwig Thierry Boutsen	Ford Sierra RS Cosworth	Div.3	406	DNF	DNF

Complete Bathurst 1000 results

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
1987	Eggenberger Motorsport	Klaus Ludwig	Ford Sierra RS500	1	159	DSQ	DSQ
			Ford Sierra RS500	1	-	DNS	DNS
1988	Allan Moffat Enterprises	Allan Moffat Gregg Hansford	Ford Sierra RS500	A	129	DNF	DNF
1989	Allan Moffat Enterprises	Frank Biela	Ford Sierra RS500	A	161	2nd	2nd
1990	Allan Moffat Enterprises	Frank Biela Pierre Dieudonné	Ford Sierra RS500	1	151	10th	10th
		Gregg Hansford Pierre Dieudonné	Ford Sierra RS500	1	138	DNF	DNF
1992	Allan Moffat Enterprises	Gregg Hansford	Ford Sierra RS500	A	128	19th	17th
1996	Allan Moffat Enterprises	Ken Douglas	Ford EB Falcon		157	10th	10th

External links

• bio at n-tv
• Klaus Niedzwiedz at the Internet Movie Database (for his appearance in Treibstoff)
• Zakspeed Website
• Profile of the highly successful Zakspeed-built Group 5 racing Capri

References