1,000 Greatest Drivers: Klaus Ludwig

Probably my pick for the greatest touring car driver in history.

Ludwig, who celebrates his 75th birthday today, is both my pick for the greatest touring car driver of all time as well as the second-greatest German driver behind only Michael Schumacher. Yes, even over Sebastian Vettel. While Vettel certainly hit a higher peak than Ludwig, I think I have to give it to Ludwig for his sheer longevity. The fact that he won in 27 consecutive seasons while driving exclusively in major league racing series is pretty freaking mind-boggling. You could argue Yvan Muller did that too, but that depends on whether you count the French ice-racing Andros Trophy counts as a major league series or not. I would definitely say Ludwig trumps Muller. Out of the over 20,000 drivers in my global driver list, I’m pretty sure no one else has ever done this. In F1, no one had even 20 years between their first and last wins. In NASCAR, Richard Petty’s 24 years between his first and last wins (1960-1984) are the most. In IndyCar, Mario Andretti did have 28 years between his first and last wins (1965-1993), but admittedly, Mario’s last win at Phoenix was kind of a fluke and he had gone winless the previous four years prior to that so he was definitely washing up. Even in sports car racing, drivers like Scott Pruett and Hurley Haywood rivaled the longevity, but still didn’t win races every year. Ludwig did and although everybody who knows about him agrees he’s a legend, I really don’t think people rave about him enough, probably because people define European drivers exclusively by F1 accomplishments and he didn’t race there. However, back in his day, German drivers really did tend to believe that sports car racing was the big leagues and the manufacturers did too. There were plenty of seasons when Audi or Porsche were dominating in sports cars and not involved in F1, and I don’t think Ludwig should be penalized for not racing there. I think he was even unambiguously the best driver in the world in 1979, a year where nobody really stood out in most of the other major leagues. Hopefully, people will give his career a little more attention because it definitely deserves it.