Walter Rohrl

Career

Rohrl grew up as the youngest of three children of a stonemason in Regensburg. His parents separated when he was ten years old. From then on he lived with his mother. After leaving school he completed a commercial education at Bishop's Ordinariate Regensburg. At the age of 16, Rohrl began working for the commercial director of a company that legally represented the Bishop of Regensburg along with 6 further Bishops in Bavaria, and skied in his spare time. In time he became a qualified ski instructor and a keen driver, and became the chauffeur to the commercial director, covering up to 120,000 kilometres annually. Some unqualified reports have stated he was once the Bishop's own driver, but this has been acknowledged as untrue. Having also now been active in sports like skiing, Rohrl was invited to drive his first rally in 1968.

Rohrl was a World Rally Championship favourite throughout the 1970s and 1980s, winning the Monte Carlo Rally four times with four different marques. His co-driver for many years was Christian Geistdorfer. His Fiat 131 Abarth carried him to the 1980 title, clinched with his victory in that year's San Remo rally, but it was arguably his equivalent success in 1982 that impressed most of all, with Rohrl fending off audacious four-wheel drive opposition, led by Audi's resurgent Michele Mouton, to take the title, by virtue of consistency, in his increasingly outmoded rear-drive Opel Ascona 400. It was also during this time that he won the African Rally Championship, in 1982. However, shortly after winning the championship he was fired from the team by team manager Tony Fall because he disliked competing in the RAC rally (the rally he had little success in). Rohrl had already had severe arguments with Tony Fall about publicity activities for the team sponsor, tobacco company Rothmans. Rohrl, as a strict nonsmoker, simply refused to do any filming for Rothmans publicity spots, claiming that he had been hired as a driver, not an actor, and that he could not see any sense in making tobacco marketing as a nonsmoker anyway.

In 1983, he joined Lancia to pilot the new, rear-wheel drive Lancia 037, before finally changing his machinery, in 1984, to the four-wheel drive Audi Quattro, an automobile actually produced in his home state of Bavaria.

In 1987 Rohrl set up a new record in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb for being the first driver to cover the 14.42 miles (19.99 km) long mountain track to the Pikes Peak in less than 11 minutes. In his 600 hp (440 kW) Audi Sport quattro S1 he only used 10:47.850 minutes to reach Pikes Peak on the road which at that time was mainly covered with gravel.

Despite being selective in his choice of top-level events, albeit during a time when this was a less unusual occurrence for top-line drivers in the championship, he still scored 14 WRC victories in his career.

Rohrl was also successful in road racing events, and was called "Genius on Wheels" by Niki Lauda. In the 1992 24 Hours Nurburgring race which saw fog and heavy rain in the night, he hardly slowed down, anticipating the corners by timing. The race was nevertheless interrupted for hours.

In Italy, he was elected "Rallye driver of the century". In France he was elected "Rallye driver of the millennium" in November 2000. A jury out of 100 worldwide motorsports experts elected him "Best Rallye driver ever" in Italy.

In recent years, he has been retained as the senior test driver for Porsche road cars, famously setting quick laptimes for them testing round the famous Nurburgring Nordschleife, for example with the Porsche Carrera GT.

Rohrl was expected to make his competitive return to the Nurburgring 24 hour race in 2010 at the wheel of a Porsche 911 GT3 RS. However, he was forced to withdraw from the event due to a back injury. It was to be his first 24-hour race in 17 years, since his last start in 1993. In 2011, Rohrl was inducted into the Rally Hall of Fame along with Hannu Mikkola.

WRC victories