Andreas Wirth (born 19 November 1984 in

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

) is a German racing driver. In 2004 Wirth won the

Formula BMW Formula BMW was a junior racing formula for single seater cars. It was positioned at the bottom of the motorsport career ladder alongside the longer established Formula Ford category. Like Formula Ford, it was intended to function as the young ...

USA championship after coming state-side, and then advanced to the Champ Car Atlantics in 2005 where he raced for two years, winning three races and finishing 6th and 3rd in the championship. Following up a full 2006 season in Atlantics, Wirth was named to compete in his first

Champ Car Champ Car World Series (CCWS) was the series sanctioned by Open-Wheel Racing Series Inc., or Champ Car, a sanctioning body for American open-wheel car racing that operated from 2004 to 2008. It was the successor to Championship Auto Racing Teams ( ...

race in

Dale Coyne Racing Dale Coyne Racing (DCR) is an American professional open-wheel racing team that currently competes in the IndyCar Series. The team was founded in 1984 and is owned by former driver Dale Coyne. From 1995 to 2000, the team was known as Payton-Coyn ...

's entry at Surfer's Paradise, where he finished in 9th place. He then went on to race with Coyne in Mexico City. In 2008 he ran in the

Petit Le Mans The Petit Le Mans ( French for ''little Le Mans'') is a sports car endurance race held annually at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia, USA. It uses the rules established for the 24 Hours of Le Mans by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO), which a ...

with PTG

Panoz Panoz is an American manufacturer of sports automobiles founded in 1989 as Panoz Auto Development by Dan Panoz, son of Don Panoz. Panoz products have included the Panoz Roadster and AIV Roadster, the Panoz Esperante, and the Panoz Avezzano. Pan ...

. For seven seasons Wirth competed in the

ADAC GT Masters The ADAC GT Masters is a grand tourer-based auto racing series founded by the international Stéphane Ratel Organisation (SRO) and supported by the German ADAC automotive club. Similar to an earlier ADAC GT Cup series in the 1990s, the new GT ...

series where he tallied a total of 9 victories. In 2016 Wirth moved into Prototype racing in the

European Le Mans Series The European Le Mans Series (abbreviated as ELMS) is a European sports car racing endurance series inspired by the 24 Hours of Le Mans race and organized by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO). The European Le Mans Series is similar to the fo ...

with

SMP Racing SMP Racing is the motor sport endurance racing team and also motorsport management created in 2013 by Boris Rotenberg, founder of the SMP Bank of Russia. Description The goal of SMP Racing is to train and unveil new talents. The team's training ...

in their

LMP2 A Le Mans Prototype (LMP) is the type of sports prototype race car used in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, FIA World Endurance Championship, IMSA SportsCar Championship, European Le Mans Series and Asian Le Mans Series. Le Mans Prototypes were create ...

-class BR01 with co-drivers

Stefano Coletti Stefano Coletti (born 6 April 1989) is a Monégasque professional racing driver who races for SMP Racing in the European Le Mans Series. His sister Alexandra Coletti is an alpine skier. He is the first Monégasque driver since Louis Chiron (1931) ...

and

Julián Leal Ómar Julián Leal Covelli, commonly known as Julián Leal, (born May 11, 1990 in Bucaramanga) is a professional racing driver from Colombia. He has also competed with an Italian licence in the GP2 Series. Career Formula Renault 2.0 Leal began ...

Career

Wirth began his career in

karting Kart racing or karting is a road racing variant of motorsport with open-wheel, four-wheeled vehicles known as go-karts or shifter karts. They are usually raced on scaled-down circuits, although some professional kart races are also held on f ...

in 1998, racing in several junior and senior German Karting series and earning several championships through 2000. In 2001, he placed second in the German

Formula Ford Formula Ford, also known as F1600 and Formula F, is an entry-level class of single seater, open-wheel formula racing. The various championships held across the world form an important step for many prospective Formula One drivers. Formula For ...

Championship, and finished 11th at the

Formula Ford Festival The Formula Ford Festival is an annual meeting of Ford-powered single-seat racing cars which is held at the end of the British racing season, at the Brands Hatch motor racing circuit in the county of Kent, in Southern England. The events are hel ...

Brands Hatch Brands Hatch is a motor racing circuit in West Kingsdown, Kent, England, United Kingdom. Originally used as a grasstrack motorcycle circuit on farmland, it hosted 12 runnings of the British Grand Prix between 1964 and 1986 and currently host ...

. He then moved to the

ADAC series, finishing 9th in the championship in

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

and 10th in

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

American open-wheel racing

In 2004, Wirth moved to the United States, winning the inaugural Formula BMW USA championship with 4 wins and 11 podiums. He competed in the

Atlantic Championship The Atlantic Championship is a formula race car series with races throughout North America. It has been called Champ Car Atlantics (after its former name), Toyota Atlantics (due to the series' previous history of using Toyota-powered engines) ...

in the 2005 and 2006 seasons, winning 3 times (Denver 2005, Long Beach and Houston 2006) and finishing 3rd in the championship in 2006. Late in 2006, Wirth ran two

races for

, finishing 9th at Surfers' Paradise and 15th at

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

. After sitting out 2007, Wirth competed in 3 Atlantic races in 2008 and also drove for

Team PTG at the

2008 Petit Le Mans The 2008 Petit Le Mans powered by the Totally New Mazda6 was the eleventh running of the Petit Le Mans and the tenth round of the 2008 American Le Mans Series season. It took place at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia, United States of America ...

ADAC GT

Wirth returned to Europe in 2009, racing for

Alpina Alpina Burkard Bovensiepen GmbH & Co. KG is an automobile manufacturing company based in Buchloe, in the Ostallgäu district of Bavaria, Germany that develops and sells high-performance versions of BMW cars. Alpina works closely with BMW and ...

in the

, winning once with co-driver

Jens Klingmann Jens Klingmann (born 16 July 1990 in Heidelberg) is a German racing driver. Career Formula BMW In 2006, Klingmann moved up to Formula BMW ADAC with Eifelland Racing. He finished his first FBMW campaign fourth in the Drivers' Championship with ...

. In 2010, he finished 6th in the championship for s-Berg Racing, winning two races with Martin Matzke. Wirth joined Heico Motorsport in 2011, finishing 9th in the championship and winning one race with co-driver Christiaan Frankenhout. For the next four seasons, Wirth raced in Callaway Competition's GT3

Chevrolet Corvette The Chevrolet Corvette is a two-door, two-passenger luxury sports car manufactured and marketed by Chevrolet since 1953. With eight design generations, noted sequentially from C1 to C8, the Corvette is noted for its performance and distinctive ...

. His best season was 2014, where he won four races in a partial season alongside the defending champion Daniel Keilwitz, and placed 6th in the championship.

2016

In 2016, Wirth finished 3rd in the

LMP2 championship with

, driving the

BR01 prototype.

Racing record

American Racing results

(

key Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (map ...

)

Atlantic Championship

Champ Car

ADAC GT Masters

Complete European Le Mans Series results

Co-Drivers: Stefano Coletti, Julian Leal, Vitaly Petrov

WeatherTech SportsCar Championship

(

)(Races in bold indicate pole position, Results are overall/class)

References

External links

Official Website

DriverDB profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wirth, Andreas 1984 births ADAC GT Masters drivers Atlantic Championship drivers Champ Car drivers European Le Mans Series drivers Formula BMW ADAC drivers Formula BMW USA drivers German racing drivers Living people Sportspeople from Heidelberg Racing drivers from Baden-Württemberg Eifelland Racing drivers SMP Racing drivers WeatherTech SportsCar Championship drivers Forsythe Racing drivers Dale Coyne Racing drivers Nürburgring 24 Hours drivers