Claudia Hürtgen joins ABT Cupra XE for Extreme E

VIVIEN STREBELOW

Dec 12, 20202 min read

Updated: Dec 13, 2020

Claudia Hürtgen, one of Europe´s most successful female racing drivers with experience in endurance, touring cars and sportscar racing, joins ABT CUPRA XE alongside Matthias Ekström for the all-new Extreme E.

Claudia Hürtgen is one of Germany´s most famous female racing drivers.

She started with karting and moved up to formula racing in the 90s, but during the F3 invitational race at the 1993 Monaco Grand Prix she suffered a hand injury which ended her single-seater career.

After the incident, she switched to touring cars and soon proved her talent by winning the Austrian championship; she was also able to score several victories in sportscar racing, including the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Next to such impressive achievements, Claudia won the VLN championship in 2005 - which made her the first female champion since Sabine Schmitz in 1998.

Hürtgen now joins Extreme E with team ABT Cupra XE: “Even after 25 years in motorsport, Extreme E is an all-new and exciting challenge for me that I’m very much looking forward to." - she commented. "What makes this competition special among other things is the fact that this is an all-new adventure for all entrants that we’re jointly embarking on.”

Claudia will team-up with Mattias Ekström - the multiple DTM-champion who has been driving in the highest ranks of the World Rallycross championship WRX in the past couple of years. The Swede said about his new teammate: “We met Claudia for the first time at a small shoot-out with several female candidates this summer, and were soon convinced that she’d be the right choice – not only because of her strong performance in the cockpit, but also due to her professional cooperation, her precise feedback to our engineers and her overall demeanour. Claudia is simply a good fit for us.”

The first race on 20th and 21st March will be held in Al Ula, Saudi Arabia.