Walter Röhrl


Walter Röhrl is a German rally and auto racing driver, with victories for Fiat, Opel, Lancia and Audi as well as Porsche, Ford and BMW. Röhrl had 14 victories over his career, with his notable achievements including winning the World Rally Championship twice: in 1980 in a Fiat Abarth and in 1982 while driving for an Opel. He has also competed in other forms of motorsport, such as an endurance racing, winning in the GTP +3.0 class in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1981 with the Porsche System team. Röhrl also set the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb record in 1987 driving, an Audi Sport Quattro S1 E2. He is often regarded as one of the greatest rally drivers of all time.

Career

Röhrl grew up as the youngest of the three children of a stonemason in Regensburg, Bavaria, near Munich. His parents separated when he was ten years old. From then on he lived with his mother. After leaving school he completed a commercial education at Bishop's Ordinariate Regensburg. At the age of 16, Röhrl began working for the commercial director of a company that legally represented the Bishop of Regensburg along with six further Bishops in Bavaria, and skied in his spare time. In time he became a qualified ski instructor and a keen driver, and became the chauffeur to the commercial director, covering up to 120,000 kilometres annually.

Rally career

Röhrl was invited to drive his first rally in 1968.
Röhrl was a World Rally Championship favourite throughout the 1970s and 1980s, winning the Monte Carlo Rally four times with four different marques. His co-driver for many years was Christian Geistdörfer. His Fiat 131 Abarth carried him to the 1980 title, clinched with his victory in that year's San Remo rally. For 1981, Röhrl signed a five-year deal with Mercedes-Benz, who planned to compete with a 500 SL roadster in 1981 and 1982, to be followed by a purpose-built, mid-engined, turbocharged Group B car in 1983. In the end, Mercedes-Benz withdrew shortly before the first rally of the season and cancelled the Group B program. Röhrl was given a DM 900,000 lump sum and release from his five-year contract, but too late in the season to get a seat.
A few months later, Röhrl and Geistdörfer took a short-term engagement with Porsche and campaigned a Porsche 924 Carrera GTS in six rounds of the German rally championship. Röhrl also started the San Remo rally in a Porsche 911 SC, but was forced to retire with driveshaft trouble while in second place. Röhrl has referred to this as his most bitter retirement, as he had been hoping that a victory would help coax Porsche into committing to a full WRC effort.
It was arguably his second title, in the 1982 World Rally Championship season, that impressed most of all, with Röhrl fending off four-wheel drive opposition led by Audi's resurgent Michèle Mouton, to take the title by virtue of consistency in his increasingly outmoded rear-drive Opel Ascona 400. It was also during this time that he won the African Rally Championship in 1982. However, shortly after winning the championship, he was fired from the team by team manager Tony Fall because he disliked competing in the RAC rally. Röhrl had already had severe arguments with Fall about publicity activities for the team sponsor, tobacco company Rothmans. Röhrl, as a strict nonsmoker, refused to do any filming for Rothmans publicity spots, claiming that he had been hired as a driver, not an actor, and that he could not see any sense in promoting tobacco as a non-smoker.
In 1983, he joined Lancia to pilot the new, rear-wheel drive Lancia 037, before finally changing his machinery in 1984 to the four-wheel drive Audi Quattro, a car produced in his home state of Bavaria.
In 1987, Röhrl set up a new record in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb by being the first driver to win the 12.42 miles long mountain track to the Pikes Peak in less than 11 minutes. In his 600 hp Audi Sport Quattro S1 E2 he did the American hillclimb in 10 minutes and 47.850 seconds to reach Pikes Peak on the road which at that time was mainly covered with gravel.
Despite being selective in his choice of top-level events, albeit during a time when this was not unusual for top-line drivers in the championship, Röhrl still scored 14 WRC victories in his career.
In Italy, he was elected "Rallye driver of the century". In France he was elected "Rallye driver of the millennium" in November 2000. A jury out of 100 worldwide motorsports experts meeting in Italy elected him "Best Rallye driver ever". In 2011, Röhrl was inducted into the Rally Hall of Fame along with Hannu Mikkola and, in July 2016, was inducted into Germany's Sports Hall of Fame.

Other events

Röhrl was also successful in road racing events and was called "Genius on Wheels" by Niki Lauda. Together with Jürgen Barth, he took a class victory in the 1981 Le Mans 24 Hours at the wheel of a Porsche 924 Carrera GTP, finishing seventh overall. Together with Harald Grohs and, he started in two races in the World Sportscar Championship the same year on a Porsche 935, winning the Silverstone 6 Hours race. In the 1992 24 Hours Nürburgring race, which saw fog and heavy rain in the night, he hardly slowed down, anticipating the corners by timing. The race was nevertheless interrupted for hours.
In recent years, he has been retained as the senior test driver for Porsche road cars, setting quick laptimes for them testing round the Nürburgring Nordschleife, for example, with the Porsche Carrera GT.
Röhrl was expected to make his competitive return to the Nürburgring 24-hour race in 2010 at the wheel of a Porsche 911 GT3 RS. However, he was forced to withdraw from the event due to a back injury. It was to be his first 24-hour race in 17 years, since his last start in 1993.

WRC victories

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