Nine wins in the Rookie stakes, a total of 17 appearances on the Rookie podium in 18 races plus the Rookie title by a 28-point margin, 18-year-old Niklas Krütten certainly had an outstanding season in the 2020 Euroformula Open Championship, clinching the Rookie title in the third-to-last race.
He also achieved a podium in the overall standings in five races. The weekend at Monza’s high-speed circuit in northern Italy was the highlight of 2020 for him when he finished all three races in P3 overall with Team Motopark.
In Oschersleben and for the first time before the start of the season, Krütten was able to test drive the new Formula 3 racing car which made its debut in the 2020 Euroformula Open Championship. He found switching to a car with the halo safety device fairly straightforward and quickly got used to the higher speeds possible with the Dallara 320 thanks to its higher downforce and better brakes.
Krütten’s racing intelligence and focused driving style helped him set a new record for distance covered in the Euroformula Open Championship. In the course of the season, he notched up 1,646 kilometres while racing, which equates to 100 percent of the total race distance, a feat achieved by only two drivers. In his first full season in the championship, he posted 311 laps in races at seven different European circuits.
Long wait for Krütten who should actually have started the 2020 season 25th April at Paul Ricard (France), but because of the corona pandemic, the racing year did not get under way until 8th August 2020 at the Hungaroring in Budapest (Hungary). The months that followed were physically and mentally gruelling with seven events taking place within a twelve-week timeframe. The finale at the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona (Spain) was also tough. Four races were held over a single weekend but Krütten was still in excellent physical shape. He finished all the races in the Top Three in the Rookie classification and took another podium overall.
As a driver sponsored by the ADAC Sports Foundation since 2018, Krütten met his colleagues in February during an introductory course at Bad Endorf. The four-day event featured seminars on a range of topics, including nutrition, marketing and fitness. Krütten will continue to receive support from the ADAC Sports Foundation in 2021. In the coming season, he intends to continue on his steep learning curve from last year and keep up the fight to be a top contender. Through its support programmes, the ADAC has sponsored a great many drivers in the past as they made their way in motorsport, including four-time Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel and three-time DTM champion Rene Rast.
Seven events and 18 races, all held at racetracks that have featured on the Formula 1 race calendar in recent years, made up the 2020 season of the Euroformula Open Championship, including Krütten’s two favourites, the challenging circuits Red Bull Ring in Austria and Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium. No rounds of the championship were held in Germany last season, so the meeting at the famous Ardennes roller-coaster was Krütten’s home race, as it is very close to his hometown geographically speaking. Trier and the racetrack are only 100 kilometres apart.