This is one of the highest profile drivers I've interviewed so far and Formula E and Le Mans legend André Lotterer was an absolute delight to chat with! Ahead of last weekend's Portland E-Prix, Andre spared a little of his time for me!
The one time F1 driver and current Avalanche Andretti driver and I chatted about lots, from food, to Goodwood, what it means to drive Le Mans and more.
📸 André(right) with current teammate Jake Dennis.
Onto the questions!
1. You've had a very varied career so far, driving in a number of series from F1 to Formula E and World Endurance, what is your greatest achievement so far? Winning Le Mans in 2011. Of course I can count all my karting wins too, I wouldn't be where I have been without them. My wins in Japan are very special too.
📸 The car that brought André and Audi the 2011 Le Mans 24h win.
2. You've raced against some huge names, who has been your toughest opponent so far? Definitely Peugeot in 2011. It was a big rivalry, very intense. To pick an individual driver would be very tough, there's been so many.
3. You made your F1 debut with Caterham, but rumours afterwards suggested you declined offers to race for the team again, were they accurate, and if they were, why? In Monza they wanted someone else to do FP1, but I wanted to maximise the time in the car, obviously in hope of more races or getting a full time seat. In WEC with Audi I was the lead driver and didn't want to give that up too.
📸 André in the Caterham car.
4. You took part in the 'Gulf Historic Dubai GP Revival', how much potential does the event have to be become a Middle Eastern version of the Silverstone Festival or Goodwood Revival? It's special, I really enjoyed my time there but Goodwood is and always will be Goodwood, there's nothing like it.
📸 André in Jacky Ickx and Derek Bell's 1981 Le Mans winning car.
5. I read that one of your hobbies is discovering unique foods; what's the strangest thing you've tried? I'm a foodie. I've tried a lot of things but the strangest things definitely came when I lived in Japan. I've had raw whale, turtle soup, chopped live raw octopus. There's also this weird little fish things that they served live in a vinaigrette!
6. You're a 3 times Le Mans winner, what is it that makes Le Mans so good? I think the layout. It helped to create the most beautiful cars, so streamlined. The fact it's 24 hours is also special, the event created legendary brands like Bugatti, Porsche, Ferrari. There's the prestige, the speed of the straight.
📸 Le Mans Circuit from above(top) and André's car(shared with Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor) from this year's race(bottom).
7. You've achieved a lot in Formula E, including helping the series grow over the seasons, what made you choose Formula E in the first place? I was with Audi at the time and the opportunity came up. We all have a bit of responsibility to try help, and that's what I wanted to do.
📸 André(left), with Jean Eric Vergne and Sebastien Buemi in Chile.
8. Over the course of your career, have you been able to collect anything cool, for example helmets, race suits etc that you keep at home? I try. Not as much as I wanted to. I sold an Audi R18, I should have tried to keep it but had to sell. There's a go kart I'd love to get back. Collected some trophies for sure!
📸 André in his younger days.
Bonus question! Would you rather fight 1 Sam Bird sized bird, or 100 Sam Bird sized birds? 1 Sam Bird sized bird! It's not that big hahaha!
Thanks to André for the chat! Thanks also to Lewis Mitchell at Andretti for arranging this with André!
I'll hopefully get the chance to speak with André again sometime, this was a pleasure!
📸 André(middle) in Portland.
Formula E next head to Rome where you can see André in action.
📸 Image credits: Avalanche Andretti Formula E, André Lotterer, 24h du Mans, Audi, Sky Sports.
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