Drivers

Christijan Albers

Albers raced karts in his native Holland until 1997 when he started racing in Formula Ford and won the Belgian and Dutch national titles. He then moved into the German Formula 3 series with Van Amersfoort Racing and won his first victories that year at the Norisring. He finished fifth in the series and switched to Bertram Schafer Racing for 1999 and won the German title with six victories. He then moved up into Formula 3000 in 2000 with the European Arrows team, as team mate to Mark Webber. He was named a Minardi test driver after team boss Paul Stoddart took over Minardi but could not fund an F1 programme and so joined Mercedes-Benz in the DTM series with Team Persson. In 2002 he moved to Team Rosberg and in 2003 became a driver with the HWA team, winning four races and finishing runner-up in the series. In 2004 he stayed with HWA and finished third in the series with one victory. Throughout his DTM career Albers remained a regular test driver for Minardi before joining the team as a race driver in 2005 after tests with Jordan Grand Prix and the Walker Racing Champ Car team. His first season was a solid one but with Minardi being bought by Red Bull, Albers ended up switching to MF1 Racing in 2006 and did a decent job. He was retained in 2007 by which time the team had been taken over by the Dutch car company Spyker. The new relationship was not a success and he was replaced in the team after the British GP. In 2008 he returned to DTM, driving for Audi.