Uwe Alzen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Uwe Alzen (born August 18, 1967 in Kirchen, Germany) is a race car driver known for his speed, aggressiveness and outspokenness, which is loved by the fans, and much less so by the team owners.

He won the 1992 German Porsche Carrera Cup, the 1994 Porsche Supercup and the 1995 Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft privateer B-Class championship.

In 1996 he raced in the full Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft ITC International Touring Car Championship, driving an Opel Calibra V6. When this series was discontinued, he raced for Opel in the German STW Supertouring series. Alzen celebrated a championship win in 1999 for Opel after a last corner incident involving his teammate Roland Asch, but it was later given to the victim of the incident, Christian Abt.

Alzen continued with Opel in 2000 in the new Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, but was released after colliding with his teammate Manuel Reuter. He left the AMG-Mercedes team in 2003 under similar circumstances.

Alzen was also a competitor in the 1998 FIA GT Championship season and 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans race in a Porsche 911 GT1, finishing 2nd overall. In 2004 he also competed in FIA GT, with Michael Bartels on a Vitaphone-sponsored Saleen S7.

Uwe Alzen and his elder brother Jürgen Alzen were also driving at the Nürburgring Nordschleife VLN Endurance racing series and 24 Hours Nürburgring in their privately built Porsche 996 GT2 Turbo 4WD from 2003 to 2005. Uwe Alzen set the lap record there with this Turbo at 8:09, about 10 seconds faster than the factory cars of Opel and Audi from the DTM, as well as the BMW M3 V8 GTR of Schnitzer Motorsport. He also has beaten them for the pole positions, yet his car failed at the start of the 2005 wet race due to electronic problems, prompting another very emotional interview.

Nürburgring-Fans voted him Driver of the Year 2004.

Due to rule changes for 2006, also the Alzen brothers discontinued made thier use of a turbo engine in favor of a normally aspirated Porsche 997 GT3. But they chose to run a standard H pattern manual gearbox in the 2006 24h race, convinced that the Porsche sequential gearbox would not last. They finished in second place, after the Manthey Porsche which has a sequential gearbox that saves several seconds per lap. Uwe was quite upset with the disadvantages of having a manual gearbox during the post race press conference.