Photos by the Author
The annual Race of Champions has been held in Düsseldorf and the Germans seem to love this event judging by the enthusiastic crowd in the covered football stadium. No surprise perhaps as the German team of Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel took the Nations Cup for the fifth year in a row. Although the two F1 champs might be on different teams in their regular day jobs, they seem to work together well for this unique event.
Contractual terms forbid Schumacher from driving any of the branded cars so the crowd only saw him race the ROC buggies, the KTM X-Bows and the World Touring Racecar Series cars that are almost identical to a NASCAR stock car. They might not be nimble or as fast as other cars but they are a crowd favorite due to the raucous V-8 sound that reverberates through the stadium.
The German stars might dominate the Nations Cup but when it comes down to the individual races for the Champion of Champions crown it seems to be anybody’s guess as to who might win. Last year’s rookie winner, Filipe Albuquerque from Portugal, was knocked out in the first round this year as were Travis Pastrana and Brian Deegan. The big surprise was when Tom Kristensen from Denmark beat Schumacher by just two-hundredths of a second in the semi-finals. Ironically Vettel had been taken out earlier by Schumacher in the quarter finals.
Rookie Sébastien Ogier, the rising 27-year-old French rally star was the surprise other finalist and when it came down to the wire it was he who beat Kristensen to win the 2011 Race of Champions. Since both these drivers are under contract with the Volkswagen Group they were able to drive the wonderful sounding Audi R8 LMS cars in the final round instead of the ROC buggies, which made for a more glamourous finish.
It was a fitting win for Volkswagen as just a couple of weeks ago Ogier, who won five WRC rounds driving for the Citroen team this year, signed up as the new driver for VW’s fledgling WRC team. He did a few demonstration runs in an early prototype of the VW Polo R WRC car on Saturday.
“My first outing in Volkswagen overalls and this in Germany and then victory in the Race Of Champions – I’m absolutely delighted,” said Ogier. “They were exciting races against fantastic opponents. It’s not easy for a newcomer to master the many different cars and the track, but I had a good feeling from the word go. It was a great honor for me to be invited for the first time to participate in the Race Of Champions. My thanks also go to the fans that made the atmosphere electric.”
Even the beaten Kristensen, an eight-times winner at Le Mans, admitted afterwards: “Sébastien really impressed me and he certainly has a big future ahead of him in rallying with Volkswagen.” For VW, just as it embarks on a WRC program, it was good for a rally driver to win since the vent has tended to have been dominated by road racers in the past few years.
We chatted with Pastrana, who was still nursing his fast-healing broken foot, before the final races. He told us he was surprised that he enjoyed driving the Audi R8 LMS the most and was disappointed when he found the Skoda Fabia Super 2000 rally car more difficult to drive than expected – perhaps that was because he had a minor run-in with a barrier in one round when he nearly rolled the Skoda. Other drivers seemed to enjoy driving the special single-seater ROC cars the most, despite their only having a small 170 horsepower 1.1-liter engine.
It was my first time attending a Race of Champions and I found it more exciting than expected. Yes the track is too tight, a “Mickey Mouse” course so to speak, but when you put a group of the world’s best race drivers in a variety of very different cars they take the challenge seriously. Some of them consider the event a fun end-of-season time, and when each three-lap round starts they take every turn of the narrow course as you’d expect them to. It’s amazing how well the two parallel tracks work out. The cars are almost racing side by side for perhaps half of the track making it visually exciting even though they are not racing wheel-to-wheel.
The organizers have not yet announced where next year’s event will be held. Should it be in the U.S.? Are we ready to host a Race of Champions event?
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