At the age of ten, German racing driver Timo Bernhard won his first title in junior slalom karting. It was the first of a long list! At the top of that list are his victories in all of the world’s biggest sports car endurance races: 24 hours of Le Mans, 24 hours of Daytona and the 12 hours of Sebring. At the Nürburgring he has claimed the overall victory in the 24 hour race five times.
Timo has been an integral part of Porsche’s Le Mans LMP1 project since 2013. He is competing with the Porsche 919 Hybrid in the World Endurance Championship including the prestigious 24 hours of Le Mans.
Where did your interest in motorsport come from?
– The interest in motorsport came through my father who was a racing driver himself but for him it was only a hobby. I’ve been to motorsport events from a very early age, I was only 6 months when he took me to a hill climb! I was passionate about motorsport from a very early age. I remember telling my father’s friends when I was 5 that I also wanted to be a racing driver but unlike them, I’d like to get paid for it…
How old were you when you started in karting?
– When I was 9 we heard of the possibility for me to do Karting. I just turned 10 when I started in Kart slalom around cones. It was a good training and I won the regional Championship straight away. We quickly switched to “circuit” Karting, but in Germany at that time racing was only allowed at the age of 12, so I had to do one year of training only and no races.
What was your best memory in karting?
– I have a lot of great memories in Karting, it’s been such good training. The highlight for me on a national level was to clinch the ONS German Junior Karting Championship. Internationally it was finishing 5th in the CIK- FIA 5 Continents Cup (World Cup for Juniors) at Braga. I was leading after the start and suffered a slow puncture but it was still a great success.
What are the qualities of this discipline?
– First of all as a young driver you start just for fun and for me that’s the base of it all. Once you feel that this could become your life you have to step it up. The key is to learn all the basic skills in Karting which you need later in Motorsport such as racecraft, setup, rules, racing lines and so on at a young age. I also enjoyed measuring myself against all the other young talents in Europe and on an international level. It is better in Karting than in some other Motorsport disciplines and boosts the learning process. I think the great thing for young girls or boys in Karting is that they learn to measure themselves against others, to focus on a goal, sportsmanship and, above all, to enjoy something. My son is 17 months old now and if he wants to take the same path in the future I will certainly try to give him the same support that I had from my dad.
(Extract of tghe CIK-FIA Best-of 2014)
Info CIK / © Photo Porsche