1,000 Greatest Drivers: Marcel Tiemann
Short for Trivia Man.
Yesterday was pretty exhilarating. In what was probably my 20th or so attempt at bar trivia since I started going last year, our “Bartender’s Always Right” team finally won. I think the difference this time is that our lineup was multi-generational. The one player who always shows up is probably about 15 years older than me, as is his wife who frequently shows up. Their daughter and her boyfriend also came and they seemed to be both about 15 years younger than me, so you could say we all benefited from covering each generation’s culture. I only showed up at the last minute even though I should’ve been working because my birthday is next week and your team gets bonus points if one of the members has a birthday. However, the parents are going on vacation to Ireland next week, so even with that bonus I probably wouldn’t win next week but I was excited to finally get that monkey off my back. I couldn’t believe we ended up sweeping the round naming actors who starred in sets of three movies, even though almost none of us had watched more than a couple of those movies. I got one question on The Pitt (which I had missed in LearnedLeague since until that LearnedLeague question, I had never heard of it), but admittedly, in my actual LearnedLeague questions, I’ve only gotten 32.4% of questions right, which is slightly worse than I did in 2016, so I’m probably going to be demoted to the lowest tier, but I’ll discuss that in full when the season is over I guess.
Last week, the back of my swivel chair broke so I knew I had to buy one. Literally in the middle of trivia, I walked across the street to the thrift store in the adjacent parking lot, bought a chair for $5, wheeled it back to the bar, only missed one question (which my team still got anyway) and then wheeled it home after the match ended. Sort of reminds me of that day in 1999 when I was simultaneously competing in the North Syracuse district spelling bee and the math league (which was being held at the same time in a different school). I enjoyed math league more but as an eighth-grader, this was my last chance for spelling bee glory after I’d been extremely unlucky in previous years. In fifth grade, they selected two spellers from each homeroom and even though I was easily the best speller in the class, it ended up being a teacher’s pet thing and I wasn’t it. Then, in seventh grade, I got the flu for a week on another day when the same spelling bee/math league conflict existed. I really wanted to try to go to both but Mom wouldn’t let me go to school (I will begrudgingly admit at this point correctly). So, in 1999, I was fully committed. I contemplated intentionally missing a word once I had qualified for the next round to get to math league sooner, but decided against it. I was successful enough on the math league team (eventually winning in junior high school in 9th grade and in regular high shool in both 11th and 12th) that the math league adviser held my spot for me rather than getting a sub. So, my mom’s home health aide drove me from the bee to the math league meet and I sat my trophy in front of me as if I was delivering plunder from war. Of course, for my hubris, I bombed out of the math league meet, but it was still exhilarating and that’s kind of what this felt like. It was like the only time in years I felt momentarily happy, although I still can’t get my eternal self-loathing out of my head.
I moved a few Tiemann seasons around, dropping his 2000 (which I had previously rated C-) but rating him for 2002 and 2010 when I previously had him off those year’s lists.
MARCEL TIEMANN………….GERMANY
Born: March 19, 1974
Best year: 2008
Best drive: 2008 ADAC-Zurich 24h-Rennen Nürburgring
Primarily a Nürburgring specialist, Tiemann became the first five-time 24 Hours of Nürburgring overall winner. The son of Hans-Jürgen Tiemann, who won the race twice and had an undefeated 1999 season with Peter Zakowski in what is now called the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie, a prestigious sports car series that only races at Nürburgring, Marcel’s 20 wins came up one short to Hans-Jürgen’s 21, but he was vastly more successful in the 24 Hours. Although Tiemann won the 1994 German Formula Renault title and the 1996 Monaco Grand Prix Formula 3 support race, he spent his entire major league career in sports cars and touring cars.
His first major league win came at Suzuka in the FIA GT Championship with ex-F1 driver Alessandro Nannini and five-time DTM champion Bernd Schneider. In 2000, he himself raced in DTM but he was typically stronger in sports car ensembles than solo. His only two major league solo wins came in 2001 in the V8Star Series, a short lived DTM clone with privateer teams as opposed to the DTM’s factory-backed teams. That year, he also filled in for the injured F1 safety car driver Bernd Mayländer for NLS win leader and Porsche Carrera Cup Germany champion Olaf Manthey’s DTM team, and only finished two points behind Mayländer even though Mayländer started 13 races to Tiemann’s 6.
Tiemann’s relationship with Manthey proved very fruitful later, but after a winless Porsche Supercup season in 2002, he switched to Phoenix Racing in 2003, where he gave Opel its only 24 Hours of Nürburgring win with a triumvirate of DTM champions, Manuel Reuter, Timo Scheider, and Volker Strycek. He reunited with Manthey and gave the team four consecutive 24 Hour wins from 2006-2009 for Porsche after the manufacturer won only once from 1992-2005. Timo Bernhard cco-drove all four races with Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb co-driving in 2007-2009 and Lucas Luhr and Mike Rockenfeller in 2006. Their most impressive win came in 2008 when they lost 16 minutes on the opening lap due to a cooling system failure but made it up on track by gaining 40 seconds a lap under wet conditions at night. Sadly, his career ended prematurely when he suffered brain trauma and was placed in a coma after crashing at Imola in 2010.
Although Pedro Lamy and Bernhard tied Tiemann’s five wins the next two years, his record has never been surpassed and he was clearly pivotal in making Manthey a juggernaut as only he had won the race before the four-peat. You could argue Tiemann was something of a one-trick (and one-track) pony since all but four of his major league wins came there (unlike most of his Nürburgring co-winners, although he earned a 24 Hours of Spa class win in his only start), but any driver with the most overall wins in a prestigious 24-hour race has to make the list. Since the 24 Hours of Nürburgring typically has more starters than any other major race, you could argue it’s the hardest to win.
Touring car model: #430 of 1676 (.080)
Teammate head-to-heads: 20-20 (2-4 vs. Alex Davison, 3-10 vs. Peter Dumbreck, 3-4 vs. Patrick Huisman, 0-1 vs. Sascha Maassen, 12-1 vs. Karl Wendlinger)
Year-by-year: 1997: C, 1998: C+, 2001: C+, 2002: C-, 2003: C, 2006: C+, 2007: C+, 2008: E-, 2009: E-, 2010: C-