🇩🇪 Carsten Knechtges

Knechtges is a semi-professional endurance racing driver competing in national German multiclass championships. He races modified and turbocharged production-based cars in the SP 3, SP 3T and V2T classes for the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie and Nürburgring 24 Hours, sharing his cars with co-drivers in races lasting several hours or a full day. His primary team is Manheller Racing.[1]

Over 15 seasons beginning in 2010, Knechtges took 32 wins and 47 podiums across 75 starts in the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie, where he won back-to-back titles in 2011 and 2012 driving for Black Falcon Team TMD Friction. He has started the Nürburgring 24 Hours three times since 2021, taking a podium finish in one of those attempts. His record in the Langstrecken-Serie shows consistency; he regularly finishes ahead of Daniel Zils, a multiple V5 and VT2 class champion who has raced 136 starts in the series, though entry-level professional Christopher Rink, a four-time V4 champion with 99 starts, typically finishes in front of him.[2]

Knechtges has occasionally beaten drivers of considerably higher standing. He finished ahead of Luca Engstler, a professional-level driver with 40 ADAC Formula 4 starts and 36 DTM starts, on four occasions. He also finished ahead of Andrea Caldarelli, an established professional and Platinum-graded driver who won the 2019 GT World Challenge Europe championship and the 2024 European Le Mans Series LMGT3 title, though only once across their meetings.