Natacha Gachnang
Natacha Gachnang ( born October 27, 1987 in Vevey) is a Swiss automobile racing driver. She is a cousin of the racing driver Sébastien Buemi. Her grandfather Georges Gachnang was also a racing driver and constructed in the 1960s, race and sports cars of the brand Cegga.
Career
Natacha Gachnang drove at the age of five years for the first time in a kart Her father trained together with their cousin Sebastien Buemi on a course marked out of her grandfather's garage operation in Aigle. At age nine, she drove her first kart race and despite the rain fell on par with remarkable results. From then ran the careers of both on all series parallel, first in the kart on the mini-series up to the juniors. Gachnang continued her career with a Swiss league titles, a third place in the French Championship and a fifth place in the European Championship in the same year. It was followed by a contract with Willi Weber, manager of Michael Schumacher, who had become aware of the Swiss.
In 2003 she moved to the Formula racing and competed in the German Formula BMW. With a fourth place as best result she finished 19th overall. 2004 also launched her cousin Buemi in the German Formula BMW. While Buemi was third in the overall standings, was Gachnang twelfth in the championship. In 2005, the Swiss played their third season in the German Formula BMW. She moved to Josef Kaufmann Racing and was teammate of Nico Hulkenberg and Nick de Bruijn. While Hulkenberg for eight races and was decided before Buemi Master, de Bruijn and Gachnang failed to win any race. The Swiss finished two races in second place and finished at the end of the season in sixth place in the overall standings. While Buemi moved to the Formula 3 Euro Series with the support of Red Bull, Gachnang entered 2006 in the German Formula 3 Cup. She finished a race on the podium and finished 13th in the overall standings. She also competed in four races in the Austrian Formula 3 in which she won a race. In addition, they also debuted in the Formula 3 Euro Series and participated in eight races of the 2006 season. For different teams starting any points they took the 24th place overall.
2007 Gachnang left Europe to compete in the North American Star Mazda Series. She drove right at the second race on the podium and finished with another podium placing the 15th place in the drivers' standings. Although she had offers from the Atlantic Championship, she returned to Europe. In late summer 2007, she was rookie pilot in the A1 Grand Prix Team Switzerland. At the races they did not come. In 2008 she joined the Spanish Formula 3 Championship and went on for the Spanish team Campos Racing. With three second places as the best results Gachnang finished third in the championship and had, among others, Adrián Campos Jr., one of her team colleague who unlike her about a current car behind. Since she started with an older race cars, their results also were included in the Copa de España standings. This, she decided with five victories for itself.
2009 saw Gachnang in the revived Formula 2, a racing series in which there were no teams and all the pilots were cared for by the same organization. The Swiss achieved only at the second last race when she came in seventh in the goal of points and never made it into the top ten otherwise. Thus she took the end of the season ranked number 23 in the overall standings. She also appeared in the Radical European Masters Series and was fifth with a victory in the SR5 - rating. In addition, it has been decades in the Formula Le Mans.
2010 planned Gachnang parallel to the first season of the FIA GT1 World Championship for Matech Competition and the Auto GP for Charouz - Gravity Racing to compete. However, they already had a serious accident in qualifying for the first race of the FIA GT1 World Championship 2010 at the Yas Marina Circuit. She ran into the barriers at high speed. She was responsive after the accident and was flown to a hospital. In the accident, she suffered a double fracture of the right leg. She had therefore first pause and could not participate in the opening round of the Auto GP. At the 24 - hour race at Le Mans, she made her comeback for Matech Competition. They met with Cyndie Allemann and Rahel Frey, but the team did not reach the target with technical problems. She then competed in the FIA GT1 World Championship in only one other race weekend. Furthermore Gachnang denied in the Auto GP three race weekends, finishing in 21st place overall.