Kurt Ahrens Jnr

Born: 19th April 1940, Braunschweig, Germany.

Son of a former German 250cc Speedway champion, Kurt Ahrens Jnr began racing at the age of 18 in a 500cc Formula 3 Cooper. He moved up to Formula Junior for 1960 and won the German Championship the following year, before serving a six-month suspension for disputing the official results of a race. He came back to win a second Formula Junior crown in 1963, and then dovetailed his work in his family’s business with racing variously in a Brabham and a works Abarth.

Ahrens Jnr was backed by the Caltex oil company for the 1966 season, competing in the Formula 2 class of the German Grand Prix where he failed to finish in his Brabham BT18. The same happened at the Nurburgring the following year when Kurt drove Ron Harris’s F2 Protos, but in a newer Brabham in 1968 he enjoyed a full season of Formula 2, taking three podiums including second in the Eifelrennen, plus 12th place in the horrendously wet German Grand Prix this time in pukka F1 machinery.

The following year Ahrens Jnr took a good seventh overall, and third in the F2 class, at the German GP in his Brabham and also moved into sports car racing. He shared David Piper’s Porsche 917 with Jo Siffert to win the Austrian Grand Prix – the first time the race was held on the legendary Osterreichring – and in 1970 won the Nurburgring 1000km sharing a works 917 with Vic Elford. He retired from racing at the end of 1970 to run the family scrap metal business, but continues to keep in touch with the racing scene.