Christijan Albers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Christijan Albers
Nationality  Dutch
Formula One World Championship career
Active years	2005 - 2007
Teams	Minardi, MF1, Spyker,
Races	46
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podium finishes	0
Career points	4
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	0
First race	2005 Australian Grand Prix
Last race	2007 British Grand Prix

Christijan Albers (Christijan Albers (help·info)) (born April 16, 1979 in Eindhoven) is a Dutch racing driver. After success in the DTM he drove in Formula One from 2005 until the 2007 British Grand Prix, shortly after which he was dropped by his Spyker F1 team.^[1] In 2008, he returned to the DTM-series as a driver for the Audi Futurecom TME-team.

Contents 1 Personal 2 Early career 3 DTM 4 Formula One 4.1 Minardi 4.2 Midland/Spyker F1 4.3 Remainder of the 2007 season 5 Return to DTM 6 Racing record 6.1 Career summary 6.2 Complete Formula One results 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Personal

Christijan is the son of former Rallycross ace and Porsche 911 Carrera campaigner André Albers, whose best overall result ever was to win the 1979 Dutch International Rallycross Championship (GT Division). They are not related to their compatriot Marcel Albers, who was killed in a British F3 accident at Thruxton in 1992.

Christijan is married to Liselore Kooijman. Their wedding took place on November 11, 2006, in Amsterdam.^[2] He resides in Monaco since January 1st 2007

[edit] Early career

Albers began kart racing at a young age, winning the Dutch National championship in 1997. That same year, he was crowned Formula Ford 1800 champion in both Netherlands and Belgium. He also participated in the Renault Megane Marlboro Masters series. In 1998, he moved up to the German Formula 3 series, winning the championship in 1999 behind 6 wins and ten poles.

In 2000, Albers raced in the Formula 3000 international championship as team-mate to Mark Webber. He failed to score a point, but team boss Paul Stoddart later signed him again. He also raced in European Formula Racing.

[edit] DTM

Beginning in 2001, Albers raced in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters for Mercedes-Benz, and graduated from a privately run team to the works AMG outfit in 2003 after the departure from the series of Uwe Alzen. He was instantly a front-runner, finishing runner-up in 2003 with a season-high 4 wins, and challenging DTM veteran and multiple champion Bernd Schneider for the title all the way up to the final race. In 2004 he again challenged for the championship lead for the most of the season but eventually finished third.

Results
Season 2001
- Team: Mercedes-Benz
- Points: 19, Position 14
Season 2002
- Team: Mercedes-Benz
- Points: 5, Position 12
Season 2003
- Team: AMG-Mercedes
- Points: 64, Position 2
- Wins: Adria, Nürburgring, Norisring, Zandvoort
Season 2004
- Team: AMG-Mercedes
- Points: 50, Position 3
- Wins: Estoril

[edit] Formula One

[edit] Minardi

While racing in the DTM, Albers continued to be a test and reserve driver for Minardi's Formula One interests, and has also piloted the team's two-seater F1 cars. In November 2004, he set the fastest time at a Misano di Gera d'Adda Minardi test session. He was chosen by the team to drive in the Formula One World Championship in 2005. In the 2005 United States Grand Prix he gained his first championship points with a fifth place finish, in a race where only six drivers started.

[edit] Midland/Spyker F1

On October 31, 2005, Albers was confirmed as Midland's first official Formula One driver. Midland, the re-named Jordan team, made their debut in the 2006 Formula One season.

Albers started the 2006 season well, out-pacing Midland teammate Tiago Monteiro. However, during the first few races, Midland have found themselves battling with the Super Aguri team, particularly Takuma Sato. At the 2006 San Marino Grand Prix, Albers found himself being crashed into by Yuji Ide and sent into a series of spectacular rolls. Fortunately, he was unharmed. Ide was reprimanded by the race stewards for his part in the incident.

After initial confusion over Albers' plans for 2007 after the takeover of MF1 by Spyker Cars, it was eventually confirmed that he would be driving for the Spyker F1 team in 2007.

It was later found out that Albers signed a contract with Midland F1 to remain with the team prior to the sell to Spyker. Albers' personal sponsors had major influences in Spyker buying the Midland F1 team.^[3]

In early 2007 he was outperformed by rookie team-mate Adrian Sutil. At Magny-Cours he ignored the lollipop telling him not to leave the pits during a pitstop, driving off with part of the fuel rig still attached. Albers expressed relief that nobody was hurt,^[4] but he received a €5,000 penalty for dangerous driving. Spyker technical director Mike Gascoyne commented that he was mystified by the mistake,^[5] and Niki Lauda described the incident as the most stupid thing he had ever seen in F1.^[6]

On July 10, 2007, he was released from his Spyker contract, due to a lack of sponsorship money, which would have compromised the team's development programme. Team owner Michiel Mol described it as "one of the toughest decisions of my career".^[1][7] His replacement for the 2007 European Grand Prix was former Spyker test driver Markus Winkelhock.^[8] Sakon Yamamoto then raced for Spyker for the rest of the year.

Albers returned with the Spyker team for the Rotterdam street racing event in Holland, on the 18th / 19th August. After this Albers will look for a future outside of the Spyker team.^[9]

[edit] Remainder of the 2007 season

Albers was present at both the Grand Prix at Monza and Spa, apparently looking at continuing his career within Formula One.

[edit] Return to DTM

Christijan Albers returned to the DTM-series in December 2007 as the Dutchman was invited by the Audi-team of Futurecom TME for a week of testing in Jerez de la Frontera.^[10] He tested for this team again on the Mugello Circuit in early March.

Christijan Albers has now been confirmed as a race driver for the Futurecom TME race team for 2008. He will race alongside Katherine Legge in a 2006 Specification Audi A4 DTM.^[11]

Albers was the Netherlands' most successful driver in the DTM series, finishing as runner-up in the 2003 championship.

[edit] Racing record

[edit] Career summary

Season	Series	Team Name	Races	Poles	Wins	Points	Final Placing
1997	Formula Ford 1800 Benelux	?	?	?	?	?	1st
1998	German Formula Three	Van Amersfoort Racing	20	1	2	120	5th
	British Formula Three	Opel Team BSR	1	0	0	0	NC
	Macau Grand Prix	Van Amersfoort Racing	1	0	0	N/A	NC
	Masters of Formula Three	?	1	0	0	N/A	NC
1999	German Formula Three	Opel Team BSR	18	6	6	229	1st
	British Formula Three	Opel Team BSR	1	0	0	0	NC
	Macau Grand Prix	Opel Team BSR	1	0	0	N/A	NC
	Masters of Formula Three	Opel Team BSR	1	0	0	N/A	4th
	F3 Korea Super Prix	Opel Team BSR	1	0	0	N/A	NC
2000	International Formula 3000	European Arrows	9	0	0	0	NC
2001	Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters	Team Persson	20	0	0	19	14th
2002	Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters	Team Rosberg	20	0	0	5	20th
2003	Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters	HWA AMG	10	0	4	64	2nd
2004	Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters	HWA AMG	11	1	1	50	3rd
2005	Formula One	Minardi	19	0	0	4	19th
2006	Formula One	Midland	18	0	0	0	22nd
2007	Formula One	Spyker	9	0	0	0	25th
2008	Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters	Futurecom TME	3	0	0	0	17th*

* Season in progress.

[edit] Complete Formula One results

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

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	WDC	Points
2005	Minardi F1 Team	Minardi PS04B	Cosworth TJ2005 3.0 V10	AUS Ret	MAL 13	BHR 13																	19th	4
		Minardi PS05					SMR Ret	ESP Ret	MON 14	EUR 17	CAN 11	USA 5	FRA Ret	GBR 18	GER 13	HUN Ret	TUR 19	ITA 11	BEL 14	BRA 14	JPN 16	CHN 16
2006	Midland F1 Racing	Midland M16	Toyota RVX-06 2.4 V8	BHR Ret	MAL 12	AUS 11	SMR Ret	EUR 13	ESP Ret	MON 12	GBR 15	CAN Ret	USA Ret	FRA 15	GER DSQ	HUN 10	TUR Ret						22nd	0
	Spyker MF1 Team																	ITA 17	CHN 15	JPN Ret	BRA 14
2007	Etihad Aldar Spyker F1 Team	Spyker F8-VII	Ferrari 056H 2.4 V8	AUS Ret	MAL Ret	BHR 14	ESP 14	MON 19	CAN Ret	USA 15	FRA Ret	GBR 15	EUR	HUN	TUR	ITA	BEL	JPN	CHN	BRA			25th	0

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The official website for Christijan Albers
• Christijan Albers career statistics at Driver Database

Sporting positions
Preceded by Sebastiaan Bleekemolen	Dutch Formula Ford champion 1997	Succeeded by Jeroen Bleekemolen
Preceded by Bas Leinders	German Formula Three champion 1999	Succeeded by Giorgio Pantano