Heinz-Harald Frentzen

His family was connected to motorsport; his father raced between 1950 and 1957.

Frentzen's parents divorced when he was eight years old and his father subsequently married Mexican-born Arazelli while Angela returned to Spain.

Frentzen began karting at the age of twelve, after his father brought him his first kart, and made an extraordinarily successful start.

He also participated in the Formula Opel Lotus Euroseries, where he finished 6th in the championship, scoring 56 points.

Heinz-Harald Frentzen (born 18 May 1967) is a German former racing driver.

He competed in multiple disciplines including Sportscars, Formula One and DTM.

He had his most success in Formula One, entering over 150 Grands Prix and winning three.

Frentzen was born on 18 May 1967 in the West German city of Mönchengladbach (North Rhine-Westphalia) to Heinrich-Harald Frentzen (1933–2012), a German entrepreneur and his Spanish wife Angela Lladosa (1937–2020).

He has two sisters (Sylvia, a theologian, Sonja, a teacher) and two half-sisters (Samantha, a former student, and Nicole-Nadine).

In 1981, aged fourteen, Frentzen won the German Junior Kart Championship.

Two years later, Frentzen entered the CIK Asia Pacific Championships in Australia driving a Dino although he did not finish.

In 1984, he finished runner-up in the 100cc class.

He was funded and supported by his father—a funeral director—who also acted as both team boss and head mechanic.

In 1985, Frentzen moved into car racing by entering the German Formula Ford 2000 series.

After two seasons in Formula Ford he was runner-up in the 1987 series, despite not participating in all races.

Frentzen progressed to German Formula Opel Lotus in 1988 in the Junior Team of former Formula One driver Jochen Mass, who had been impressed by Frentzen's performances in Formula Ford.

Frentzen was champion of the German series in his first year and his teammate Marco Werner finished third in the championship.

The next step was the German Formula 3 Championship in 1989, where Frentzen competed against many future stars including Michael Schumacher and Karl Wendlinger.

At the time, there was a big push by Bernie Ecclestone to have a German driver in the Formula One World Championship, so the ONS (the German National Motorsports committee) decided to support both Frentzen and Schumacher.

The ONS put up the reward of a Formula One test to the driver who first would take a victory in a Formula 3 race.

This ultimately ended up being Schumacher, in a controversial race at Zeltweg, Austria in which Frentzen claimed Schumacher had forced him off the track; however, Schumacher did not get the Formula One test drive anyway.

Karl Wendlinger won the German Formula 3 Championship and Frentzen became joint runner-up with Schumacher (the two finishing on identical points totals).

In 1990, Frentzen entered the International Formula 3000 series driving for Eddie Jordan Racing and was partnered by Eddie Irvine.

In the early 1990s, Frentzen was in a relationship with Corinna Betsch.

After their relationship ended, Corinna later married fellow Formula 1 driver Michael Schumacher.

In 1991, Frentzen continued to drive in International Formula 3000, moving to Vortex Motorsport and scored five points in that year's series.

In 1994, Frentzen was given a Formula One drive by Peter Sauber in a Mercedes powered car, as teammate to fellow Mercedes junior Wendlinger, who had made it to F1 in and was in his second year with the team.

Frentzen began the year strongly, qualifying fifth for his début in Brazil (albeit spinning off in the race) and scoring his first points with fifth in the Pacific Grand Prix.

He was then thrust into the role of de facto team leader after Wendlinger crashed during qualifying for the fourth round of the season in Monaco, leaving him with severe head injuries that ruled him out for the remainder of the year.

Frentzen had the measure of substitute team-mates Andrea de Cesaris and JJ Lehto, scoring points on three further occasions and finishing thirteenth in the World Drivers' Championship.

A particularly noteworthy performance came in the European Grand Prix at Jerez, where he qualified fifth and ran third in the race.

The team's decision to run a one-stop refuelling strategy caused his pace to suffer and he slipped back to sixth by the finish.

Sauber's performance was not sufficient to keep the partnership with Mercedes alive: the marque moved to McLaren, leaving the team to acquire a supply of Ford V8 engines for the season instead.

The engines had powered Michael Schumacher to the World Drivers' Championship in 1994, but were now completely outpowered by the V10 and V12 engines used by the leading teams.

The Sauber C14 chassis was also uncompetitive at the start of the year, but Frentzen produced consistent performances to finish in the points on multiple occasions.

He finished runner-up in the 1997 Formula One World Championship.

In 1999, Frentzen married Tanja Nigge.

Together they have three children.

Frentzen finished the season 16th in the championship, scoring 3 points.

In the same year, he also participated in the World Sports Prototype Championship driving a Mercedes-Benz C11 scoring one podium and six points.