Karl Kling


Karl Kling was a motor racing driver and manager from Germany. He participated in 11 Formula One Grands Prix, debuting on 4 July 1954. He achieved 2 podiums - the first German ever to achieve a Formula One podium - and scored a total of 17 championship points.
It is said, that he was born too late and too early. Too late to be in the successful Mercedes team of the 1930s and too early to have a real chance in and. Unusually, Kling found his way into motorsport via his first job as a reception clerk at Daimler-Benz in the mid-1930s, competing in hillclimb and trials events in production machinery in his spare time. During the Second World War he gained mechanical experience servicing Luftwaffe aircraft, and after the cessation of hostilities he resumed his motorsport involvement in a BMW 328.
Kling was instrumental in developing Mercedes' return to international competition in the early 1950s, and his win in the 1952 Carrera Panamericana road race, driving the then-experimental Mercedes-Benz 300SL was a defining point in assuring the Daimler-Benz management that motorsport had a place in Mercedes' future. Called up to the revived Mercedes Grand Prix squad in 1954 he finished less than one second behind the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio on his , taking second place in the 1954 French Grand Prix at the fast Reims-Gueux circuit. This promising start was not to last, and with the arrival of Stirling Moss at Mercedes in 1955 Kling was effectively demoted to third driver. However, away from the World Championship, Kling took an impressive victory in the Berlin Grand Prix. He left the Formula One team at the end of the season, to succeed Alfred Neubauer as head of Mercedes motorsport. He was in this post during their successful rallying campaigns of the 1960s, occasionally taking the wheel himself. On one such occasion he drove a Mercedes-Benz 220SE to victory in the mighty 1961 Algiers-Cape Town trans-African rally.
He died in 2003 at the age of 92.

Complete Formula One World Championship results

YearEntrantChassisEngine123456789WDCPoints
1954Daimler-Benz AGMercedes W196Mercedes straight-8ARG500BELFRA
2		GBR
7		GER
4		SUI
Ret		ITA
Ret		ESP
5		5th12
1955Daimler-Benz AGMercedes W196Mercedes straight-8ARG
4*		MON500BEL
Ret		NED
Ret		GBR
3		ITA
Ret		11th5

* Shared drive with Stirling Moss and Hans Herrmann.

Non-championship results

YearEntrantChassisEngine12345678910111213141516171819202122232425
1954Daimler-Benz AGMercedes W196Mercedes straight-8SYRPAULAVBORINTBARCURROMFROCORBRCCRYROUCAEAUGCOROULREDPESSACJOECADBER
1		GOODTT