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Christijan Albers

Christijan Albers is a Dutch former Formula 1 driver. Today, he works as an F1 analyst at the Dutch channel Viaplay. Follow the latest news on Christijan Albers here.

Wild driver loses F1 licence after scary incident
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Wild driver loses F1 licence after scary incident
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Biography Christijan Albers

Christijan Albers was born on 16 April 1979 in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Christijan's father, André Albers, was also a racing driver. Albers senior was active in various racing classes and won the Dutch International Rally Cross Championship in 1979.

Christijan started karting at a young age and became Dutch champion in 1997. In the same year, Albers became champion in the Dutch/Belgian Formula Ford 1800 championship. In 1999, the Eindhoven native switched to Formula 3. With ten pole positions and six wins, he won the championship in his debut year. In 2000, Albers entered international Formula 3000, with Mark Webber as his teammate. However, he failed to make a mark and finished the championship without any points.

Christijan Albers DTM

After his Formula 3000 adventure, Albers swapped single-seaters for touring cars in the DTM. In 2001, he raced for Persson Motorsport, in 2002 for Team Rosberg. The following year, Albers moved to the Mercedes AMG team. At Mercedes, Albers became immediately successful. He recorded four victories and six podium finishes. He finished the season as vice-champion. In 2004, Albers competed again in the DTM. That year, too, he was on the podium several times. A highlight was a victory at the Estoril circuit. Albers finished third in the championship.

Christijan Albers F1

During his time in the DTM, Albers was also a test driver with Minardi's Formula 1 team. In November 2004, Albers clocked the fastest time during a test day at the Misano circuit. Thanks in part to this performance, Albers was offered a contract by the Italian racing stable for the 2005 F1 season. Albers scored his first (and only) points in the United States Grand Prix, a race in which only six drivers started. In the second half of the season, Robert Doornbos became Albers' teammate, making Minardi an all-Dutch driver duo.

Christijan Albers Midland F1

In mid-2005, the Midland F1 team announced that it had committed Albers for 2006. Despite the Midland being a lesser car, Albers made the most of it. He was a lot faster than teammate Tiago Monteiro and fought several battles with Takuma Sato of the Super Aguri team. At the San Marino Grand Prix, Albers got into another fight with Super Aguri, but this time with Sato's teammate Yuji Ide. Ide drove into Albers after which the Dutchman in his Midland overturned several times in the gravel pit. Miraculously, Albers got out of his car unscathed. After the incident, Ide's super licence was revoked; as it was not the first incident involving the Japanese driver.

Christijan Albers Spyker F1

In 2007, Midland was renamed the Spyker F1 team, led by Dutch Spyker Cars. During the first races of 2007, Albers was often behind teammate Adrian Sutil. During the French Grand Prix at the Magny-Cours circuit, Albers ignored the lollipop, a sign used at the time to let a driver know when he was/was not allowed to exit the pit lane. Because of this mistake, Albers drove off while the tank hose was still attached to his Spyker. No one was injured, however Albers was fined $5,500 for the incident.

On 10 July 2007, Albers' contract was terminated due to a lack of sponsor money. Team boss Michiel Mol called it "the toughest decision of his career." However, Mol was forced to make this choice due to the fact that Spyker was in dire financial straits. At the next Grand Prix, German Markus Winkelhock took over Albers' seat. A memorable moment, as Winkelhock drove several laps in the lead during this race - the European Grand Prix. However, this was the only bright spot of Winkelhock's F1 career, who was replaced by Sakon Yamamoto for the rest of the year.

Christijan Albers Caterham F1

Following the sale of the Caterham F1 Team to an investor group, team boss Cyril Abiteboul left the British team. Albers took Abiteboul's place and remained team boss until Caterham went bankrupt. This was after the 2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Return to the DTM

After Albers' F1 career came to an abrupt end in 2007, he returned to the DTM championship. He drove 11 races in 2008, but failed to score any points in any of them. After one season, Albers called it a day and continued his career in other classes, such as the American Le Mans Series and the FIA World Endurance Championship. He also drove the 24 Hours of Le Mans several times, but did not achieve success.

Christijan Albers F1 analyst Viaplay

Albers put an end to his motorsport adventure about a decade ago. Since 2022, he has been a permanent analyst at Dutch Channel Viaplay, where he reports on race weekends along with Giedo van der Garde, Tom Coronel and Ho-Pin Tung, among others.

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EXPLAINED Why Red Bull was hit with 'significant penalty' for trying to remove Lando Norris grid tape