OBSCURE F1 A-Z: CHRISTIAN KLIEN

In this 26 part series of posts I will be going through the alphabet and for each letter, a profile piece on an obscure driver - some you may have heard of before some you may never knew even sat in an F1 car let alone raced one. I have chosen a driver for each letter choosing them based on their surnames.

Christian Klien was the 15th Austrian to drive in Formula One, when thinking of Austrian drivers your mind is most likely going to think of Niki Lauda but if you grew up watching F1 in the early 2000's then you may think of Klien a driver who never really made an impact on the sport unlike the Austrian drivers before him.

Klien raced in F1 for a total of four years in two stints the first was 2004 - 2006, he then made a return in 2010 towards the end of the season. He drove for Jaguar, Red Bull and HRT. Klien entered 51 races starting 49.

Klien made his debut at the 2004 Australian Grand Prix where he finished a very respectable 11th place and just two laps down on the leaders - his teammate Mark Webber failed to finish after a transmission failure just 29 laps in. Unfortunately for the Austrian national he was never given a race winning car (the Red Bull team started fighting towards the front during the 2009 season). Which means his F1 record looks as follows;

0 Fastest Laps

0 Pole Positions

14 Career Points

0 Podiums &

0 Wins.

Klien's final F1 appearance was at the 2010 season finale at Abu Dhabi where he finished a lowly 20th place in his HRT losing out to teammate Bruno Senna who finished 19th.