The Lesser Known…Christian Klien
We catch up with the Honda test driver and try to discover just what makes the Austrian tick - his prized watch collection and love of motorbikes included…
Q: What's in your garage at home?
CK: Two Honda cars, a four wheel drive, a normal road car and a couple of bicycles. That’s all.
Q: Tell us something we don't know about you?
CK: As I child I was really interested in motorbikes. Not in cars, and I eventually would have gone into motorcycling.
Q: Your favourite song for karaoke?
CK: A ridiculous German song called ‘You Have Lied to Me a Thousand Times’...It’s my ring tone.
Q: Funniest thing you've read about yourself in the press?
CK: With hindsight, that I was involved in a night club fist fight in Austria. Though at the time, when it was published, it was not funny at all.
Q: Your most embarrassing moment?
CK: My first race in Monaco for Jaguar. On the front nose was a diamond worth US $300,000. I crashed the car in the Loews corner and the diamond was lost. That wasn’t a fun ride that day.
Q: What was your first car?
CK: My first car was a golf. I tuned it - it looked really pimped up.
Q: Best part of being a Formula One driver - apart from the driving?
CK: The travelling, and meeting interesting people. It can broaden ones horizons.
Q: Your most prized possession?
CK: My watch collection.
Q: What would you be if you weren’t a racing driver?
CK: Well, I have finished an apprenticeship as a metal worker, but I am sure I would not have carried on with that career. I was always sure of going into sports, probably being a ski racer.
Q: Person you most admire?
CK: Ayrton Senna. I saw him in 1991 at the Hockenheimring. I took a picture with him and, in that one moment, I caught the Formula One bug. From that moment on it was clear what I wanted to be.
Q: Do you have any bad habits?
CK: I bite my nails.
Q: Last good deed you did?
CK: Last week I did a charity ski race in Austria. The charity helps young athletes, who have had an accident that made them give up on their dreams of becoming ski stars.
