It is not too far off the truth to say that what Nicki Thiim hasn’t won in GT racing isn’t worth winning.
His trophy cabinet is one of those that has to be seen to be believed, and lives up to his ‘Go hard or go home’ motto. He won Le Mans in 2014, plus has two World Endurance Championship titles via his famous ‘Dane Train’ partnership with Marco Sorensen, all in an Aston Martin that Thiim these days is a factory driver for.
Thiim also has won the Nurburgring 24 Hours four times, including an overall triumph in 2013. And it’s an event that, as he explains in this readers’ Q&A, offers a challenge like no other. In addition he has a Spa 24-hours class win, plus overall Porsche Supercup and Seat Supercopa Germany championship crowns.
As son of DTM champion Kurt Thiim, Nicki was always determined to follow in his father’s footsteps, though as he tells us he did so initially without his father’s great enthusiasm.
Thiim Jr started out in karting and Formula Ford, but he also tells us he never had single-seater ambitions, rather it was racing with his roof like his father did that got his blood pumping.
The 34 year old remains a prolific presence on circuits throughout the world and, as he also tells us, plenty remains ahead for him and he maintains one particular over-arching ambition.
We’re grateful that Thiim gave his time to answer the Motorsport News readers’ questions. And we’ll start with the matter of following in his father’s footsteps.
Question: Nicki, if your dad had been a teacher instead of a driver, would you have still chosen to be a driver?
Cristina Fuser
Via Instagram
Nicki Thiim: “No, no, of course not. It’s with you all in the blood. I guess my father wanted me to have been a teacher in the beginning to be honest, but no of course it’s born into the family and obviously you look up to your father. It’s basically the only connection I had to the sport beforehand, and so obviously it’s no coincidence that I [did it myself].”
MN: So what are your earliest memories of your dad racing?
NT: “Growing up in the ’90s I remember, probably the prime of motorsport in my opinion, him driving the DTM but I only really have flash memories of it. Obviously I was only a little kid back then but there’s one race from ’95 I remember on the German airport Diepholz [circuit].
So that’s probably the only race I remember but we all know while still very young you still get infected by everything at that age. I’d been through a lot of races before that but that’s the first flash memory I have from my father racing.”
MN: So when did you decide that you wanted to race yourself?
“Since I can remember. It was the only thing I wanted to do, so school, all that stuff was secondary. But obviously you had a mum who is telling you otherwise that this is not the way it works, and again my father always said that I shouldn’t become a race driver [laughs]. Beside that I was playing a lot of football so I was pretty good at that so he always tried to push me
