Racing Career
Lotterer succeeded in both German and British Formula 3 championships en route to being named Jaguar Racing's Formula One test driver in 2002. He was passed up for a race seat in 2003 with Eddie Irvine retiring and Pedro de la Rosa leaving, as the team chose Mark Webber and Antônio Pizzonia instead.
Lotterer contested a one-off Champ Car event at the end of 2002 for Dale Coyne and scored a point. Since then he moved to Japan doing very well in both Formula Nippon and the Japanese Super GT Championship for Lexus, winning the latter in 2006 and 2009. He had also tested Toyota TF108 in 2009.
Lotterer also made his debut in the 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans, as a race week fill-in driver for the Kolles privateer Audi team. Lotterer and co-driver Charles Zwolsman, also a Le Mans rookie, drove the entire race themselves after third driver Narain Karthikeyan dislocated his shoulder in a non-racing related injury. Driving an Audi R10, the car that won the 2006, 2007 and 2008 Le Mans races, Lotterer and Zwolsman finished 7th overall and in the LMP1 class.
His impressive performance that year earned him a drive with the works Audi Sport team in the 2010 24 Hours of Le Mans, driving the new Audi R15 TDI plus. Along with Marcel Fässler and Benoît Tréluyer, he finished 2nd overall and in the LMP1 class, despite the rival Peugeot 908s dominating for the first part of the race.
He remained with Audi Sport to compete in the 2011 24 Hours of Le Mans, co-driving the newly designed Audi R18 with Marcel Fässler and Benoît Tréluyer. After the Audi works team lost two out of three cars due to accidents, Lotterer and his co-drivers held off three works Peugeots 908s to claim both 1st place in the LMP1 class and the overall victory, beating the 2nd place Peugeot by a mere 13 seconds. This win gave Audi 10 overall victories at Le Mans and Lotterer his first overall win at Le Mans.
For 2012, Lotterer will compete in the FIA World Endurance Championship, driving for Audi Sport Team Joest in a new Audi R18 e-tron quattro.
Read more about this topic: André Lotterer
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