Gregor Foitek

Gregor Foitek (German pronunciation: [ˈɡʁeːɡoːɐ̯ ˈfo.iːtɛk]; born 27 March 1965) is a Swiss former racing driver. He won the 1986 Swiss Formula 3 Championship. Moving up to Formula 3000 he was widely blamed for causing a race-stopping crash at Brands Hatch in 1988, the restart of which led to a second major crash on the first lap in which Johnny Herbert sustained major leg injuries. Foitek participated in 22 Formula One Grands Prix, debuting on 26 March 1989. He scored no championship points. He later made two CART starts for Foyt Enterprises in 1992 but was knocked out of both races by mechanical issues.

Gregor Foitek

Born	(1965-03-27) 27 March 1965 Zürich, Switzerland
Formula One World Championship career
Nationality	Swiss
Active years	1989–1990
Teams	EuroBrun, Rial, Brabham, Onyx
Entries	22 (7 starts)
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podiums	0
Career points	0
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	0
First entry	1989 Brazilian Grand Prix
Last entry	1990 Hungarian Grand Prix

Today he helps run Foitek Automobile, a family-run Ferrari and Maserati dealership in Altendorf.

Formula One career

1989: EuroBrun and Rial

Foitek made his debut at the 1989 Brazilian Grand Prix, however with turbos now banned from F1, the number of entries had grown to 39. Thirteen cars had to enter pre-qualifying and with EuroBrun having performed poorly in 1988, Foitek had to enter the session using the ER188B, which was an update of the 1988 car. Foitek only got to the main qualifying session once, at the first race in Brazil, where he then failed to qualify. After 11 rounds Foitek quit the EuroBrun team.

At the Spanish Grand Prix, Foitek was called up to replace Christian Danner at the Rial team. However, the Rial team were having a bad season and several crew members had left the team. Furthermore, although it was assured of a place in the main qualifying session, the Rial ARC2 was uncompetitive, some five seconds off the next slowest car. In his one race with the team, Foitek's rear wing broke at high speed and he crashed heavily. He immediately quit the team.

Racing record

Complete International Formula 3000 results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap.)

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Pos.	Pts
1986	Horag Racing	Lola T86/50	Cosworth	SIL	VAL	PAU	SPA	IMO	MUG	PER	ÖST	BIR	BUG	JAR Ret	NC	0
1987	Genoa Racing	March 87B	Cosworth	SIL Ret	VAL 15	SPA 10	PAU Ret	DON DNQ	PER DNQ	BRH DNQ	BIR Ret				NC	0
	GA Motorsport	Lola T87/50										IMO 12	BUG 8	JAR 14†
1988	GA Motorsport	Lola T88/50	Cosworth	JER Ret	VAL 1	PAU DNQ	SIL 4	MNZ 4	PER Ret	BRH Ret	BIR	BUG Ret	ZOL Ret	DIJ Ret	7th	15

Complete Formula One World Championship results

(key)

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	WDC	Points
1989	EuroBrun Racing	EuroBrun ER188B	Judd V8	BRA DNQ	SMR DNPQ	MON DNPQ	MEX DNPQ	USA DNPQ	CAN DNPQ	FRA DNPQ	GBR DNPQ			BEL DNPQ	ITA	POR				NC	0
		EuroBrun ER189										GER DNPQ	HUN DNPQ
	Rial Racing	Rial ARC2	Cosworth V8														ESP DNQ	JPN	AUS
1990	Motor Racing Developments	Brabham BT58	Judd V8	USA Ret	BRA Ret															NC	0
	Moneytron Onyx	Onyx ORE-1B	Cosworth V8			SMR Ret	MON 7†	CAN Ret	MEX 15	FRA DNQ
	Monteverdi Onyx Formula One										GBR DNQ	GER Ret	HUN DNQ	BEL	ITA	POR	ESP	JPN	AUS

† Driver did not finish the race, but was still classified as they completed 90% of the race distance.

Complete CART results

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	Rank	Points	Ref
1992	A. J. Foyt Enterprises	SRF 21	PNX	LBH 18	INDY	DET	POR	MIL	NHM	TOR	MIS	CLE	ROA	VAN	MDO	NAZ	LS	47th	0

References

• Grandprix.com profile
• Gregor Foitek driver statistics at Racing-Reference
• Gregor Foitek career summary at DriverDB.com

External links

• Foitek Automobile