Le Mans legend Stuck to make racing comeback – at 70

Sports Car News

Two-times Le Mans winner, F1 veteran and DTM champion Hans-Joachim Stuck is gearing up to make his racing comeback at the age of 70

Legend Hans Joachim Stuck at the 2019 German Grand Prix in Hockenheim. Photo: Grand Prix Photo

Racing legend Hans-Joachim Stuck is set to enter a seventh decade of racing

Grand Prix Photo

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Age seems to be no speed barrier to two-times Le Mans winner Hans-Joachim Stuck, who is set to make his racing comeback aged 70.

Stuck, a veteran of 74 Formula 1 starts who also won the 1985 World Sportscar Championship and 1990 DTM title, will mark a seventh decade of racing with his return in first round of the new GT2 European Series at Monza, driving a KTM X-Bow GT2.

Despite his advancing years, Stuck won’t be downgrading to a run-around car on Sundays – the formidable bespoke machine he’ll be campaiging has been developed for a championship which focuses on cars that have high power and low downforce: the X-Bow has a 660 bhp five-cylinder turbo-charged Audi engine and weighs in at 1048kg.

The German, who raced for Brabham, Shadow, ATS and March in F1, will share his car with Austrian driver Kris Rosenberger, going up against 11 other entries.

The racing format will be made up of two fifty-minute races catering for Silver and Bronze-rated drivers, on the support card for the GT3-based GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup.

Niki Lauda, Hans-Joachim Stuck, Ferrari 312B3-74, March-Ford 741, Grand Prix of Spain, Circuito del Jarama, 28 April 1974. Niki Lauda celebrating his first Formula One Grand Prix victory for Ferrari in the 1974 Spanish Grand Prix, here with Hans-Joachim Stuck who finished fourth. (Photo by Paul-Henri Cahier/Getty Images)

Stuck with Niki Lauda (left) at the 1974 Spanish GP

Paul-Henri Cahier/Getty Images

Stuck, the son of legendary pre-war driver Hans Stuck, made his own racing debut in 1969 at the Nordschleife. Although the younger Stuck officially retired after competing in the 2011 Nürburgring 24 Hours with his sons Ferdinand and Johannes, he last raced in an Audi TT ‘Race of Legends’ event at Hockenheim in 2017.

Since retiring the racing veteran has had two terms as president of the German racing federation and is a regular steward for Formula E.

The German will have to wait a some years if he wants to break the record for the oldest Le Mans entrant. Dominique Bastien scored this record last year after entering the GTE-Am class in a Porsche 911 RSR aged 76.