Marco Seefried
Marco Seefried is a German racing driver.
A long-term Porsche contracted driver, Seefried is an overall GT World Challenge Europe race winner, an FIA World Endurance Championship race winner, and has amassed multiple class victories at the Nürburgring 24 Hours, Daytona 24 Hours and 12 Hours of Sebring.
Career
Having raced sporadically until 2002, Seefried spent two years in Porsche Supercup with Team Kadach, scoring a best result of sixth at Monaco in 2003. Part-time campaigns in Porsche Carrera Cup Germany followed, before Seefried stepped up to GT2 competition with Farnbacher Racing, picking up two best finishes of fourth in the 2006 Le Mans Series.Seefried later switched his focus to Nürburgring-based racing, culminating in two Nürburgring 24 Hours class wins in 2010 and 2011 for Hankook Team Farnbacher, the former of which an overall podium. Also in 2011, Seefried scored Ferrari's first ever VLN Series win and expanded his horizons into other series, namely ADAC GT Masters and International GT Open, with moderate success. He pivoted back to Porsche machinery for all his programmes in 2012, finishing second in the SP7 class of the Nürburgring 24 Hours for Timbuli Racing and making his 24 Hours of Daytona debut for Mühlner Motorsport.
Seefried began making headlines internationally in 2013, as he achieved a GTC podium on his Sebring 12 Hours debut and took the Asian Le Mans Series by storm with AAI-Rstrada. His breakthrough came in 2014, with a GTD class win at Sebring for Magnus Racing backed up by further podiums at Daytona and Petit Le Mans. He paired this with a maiden season in the Blancpain Endurance Series and a return to Asia that yielded a win at Inje and a vice-championship. He had mixed fortune in Europe, notably topping the warmup at the 24 Hours of Spa in a Rinaldi Racing Ferrari, before moving to AF Corse for his home round at the Nürburgring and qualifying third overall, first in Pro-Am.
Jumping back and forth between the Ferrari 458, the Porsche 911 RSR and even getting a taste of the Bentley at the N24, Seefried enjoyed a fruitful 2015. He finished fifth in both the Blancpain Sprint Series, for Rinaldi, and the FIA World Endurance Championship's GTE Am category, for Patrick Dempsey's Proton-run team. A highlight of the former was a clean sweep at Misano alongside Norbert Siedler, while the latter included a podium on debut at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and a win at Fuji. Seefried also returned to Magnus Racing for three rounds of the United SportsCar Championship's North American Endurance Cup, underlined by a podium on his final outing at Watkins Glen.
In 2016, Seefried won the 24 Hours of Daytona in GTD and scored a podium at Sebring aboard Magnus Racing's new Audi R8 LMS. He tried out the Mercedes-AMG GT3 for the first time at the Nürburgring 24 Hours, and finished second overall for HTP Motorsport as the brand locked out the top four. Elsewhere, a full-time return to the European Le Mans Series with Proton produced no podiums.
Having been upgraded to an FIA Gold Categorisation ahead of 2017, Seefried had a reduced programme, racing primarily a Jaguar for Emil Frey Racing in the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup, a BMW for Falken at the N24, and an Audi for Magnus Racing in SprintX GT. He managed just one point in the former and a lone class podium in the latter. Emil Frey's switch to the Lexus RC F GT3 gave rise to a much-improved 2018 for Seefried, as he secured his first ever overall Endurance Cup win at Circuit Paul Ricard, together with Christian Klien and Albert Costa.
Despite being reclassed as FIA Silver for 2019, Seefried endured an itinerant campaign, with select appearances in IMSA, ELMS, ADAC GT Masters and Blancpain for various Porsche teams. He also entered Petit Le Mans in a Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini, and fetched a podium from a GT World Challenge Asia cameo in a HubAuto Corsa Ferrari. The COVID-marred 2020 season curtailed Seefried to only two race meetings, one of which was a dominant 24 Hours of Portimão win. He bounced back in 2021, joining Herberth Motorsport for a full 24H Series effort and an SP9 Pro-Am class win at the rain-affected Nürburgring 24 Hours, and tackling the WEC again for Dempsey-Proton Racing.
After a prolific Asian Le Mans Series return in early 2022, Seefried scaled back his racing activities again, notably reinforcing Falken at the 2022 24 Hours of Nürburgring for an eighth-place finish and Pure Rxcing at the 2023 24 Hours of Spa for a class podium.
Racing record
Racing career summary
Complete Porsche Supercup results
| Year | Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | DC | Points |
| 2002 | Kadach Tuning + Service | ITA 13 | ESP 7 | AUT 10 | MON 8 | GER 11 | GBR Ret | GER 10 | HUN 15 | BEL Ret | ITA 10 | USA Ret | USA Ret | 12th | 57 |
| 2003 | Aqua Nova Racing Team Kadach | ITA | ESP 10 | AUT Ret | MON 6 | GER 22 | FRA 19 | GBR 12 | GER | HUN | ITA | USA | USA | NC† | 27 |
† Seefried was removed from the 2003 standings as he entered less than six races
Complete European Le Mans Series results
| Year | Entrant | Class | Chassis | Engine | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Rank | Points |
| 2006 | Farnbacher Racing | GT2 | Porsche 911 GT3-RSR | Porsche 3.6L Flat-6 | IST NC | SPA 4 | NUR NC | DON 4 | JAR Ret | 13th | 10 | |
| 2010 | Hankook Team Farnbacher | GT2 | Porsche 997 GT3-RSR | Porsche 4.0 L Flat-6 | LEC | SPA | ALG | HUN 11 | SIL | 22nd | 4 | |
| 2016 | Proton Competition | LMGTE | Porsche 911 RSR | Porsche 4.0 L Flat-6 | SIL 8 | IMO | RBR 6 | LEC 6 | SPA 4 | EST 6 | 10th | 40 |
| 2019 | Proton Competition | LMGTE | Porsche 911 RSR | Porsche 4.0 L Flat-6 | LEC 7 | MNZ | CAT | SIL | SPA | ALG | 19th | 6 |