Friday, 29.03.2024 | Deutsch | English
Ellen Lohr is back

Ellen Lohr is back

02. February 2012Some truck racing fans will perhaps remember that before Ellen Lohr, the Grand Dame of German motorsport specialized in rallies and off-road races she made some male competitors in the European championship look desperate when she sat in the driver’s seat of a Mercedes-Benz SuperRaceTruck in 1997 and 1998. Now after 14 years Ellen is back in the European Truck Racing Championship, again in a Mercedes-Benz, the tankpool24 RaceTruck from the MB-motorsports team, with her former and current manager Markus Bauer. Ellen Lohr has in general a special connection to the auto brand with the star, because she mostly was, and now is, driving trucks made in Stuttgart, Germany. At the beginning of her motorsport career she successfully drove in the Formula Ford and Formula 3 series, but she enjoyed the greatest success in touring cars. The DTM victory in a Mercedes in May 1992 at the Hockenheimring was fabulous and she made race history. Lohr is the only woman, who has made it to a podium finish in the DTM series. Actually, Ellen Lohr had long said goodbye to the circuit and was either active in off-road rallies or reported about them as a journalist. She returned just a few days ago from her last commitment in South America at the Dakar rally. However, a few weeks ago she was asked by her old companion, from truck racing times, Markus Bauer, if she could imagine driving a RaceT ruck again. “I actually took some time to think about it, but deep down I had made my decision after 5 minutes,” said the new driver in the tankpool24 team at a press preview at the beginning of the week in Darmstadt, Germany. In a short interview with Malte Raddatz, who is not only the anchor of the famous Meritor Talks on “www.truckrace.tv” , but also president of Meritor truck sport, Director of Communications and representative of the second main sponsor of the Mercedes Benz team, Lohr revealed that she was not afraid to go in for a “contact motorsport” again, after all the years of driving against time and only listening to the instructions of her copilot - even if that was where she got her serious injury (a hand fracture with a big scar) after a crash with Gerd Köber during a truck race. She knew that she wouldn’t have the top equipment to drive at the very front, but she was still looking forward to the truck racing season, she added. Since truck racing has the same number of viewers contact as the rally sport does, she herself and her fans like the decision, because truck racing is a motor sport experienced first hand. Once the rumors of a possible comeback had spread during the European championship, high expectations immediately arose. While no one thinks she will drive all her competitors into the ground, what people rather hope is that her big renown in motor sports will be beneficial to truck racing in general. The competitors also hope that Lohr’s “connections” with Mercedes-Benz will have a positive impact on the opinion of the world’s biggest truck manufacturer.

Impressions:

Ellen Lohr is back