Jan de Friis

Jan de Friis (born 16th March, 1967 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands) is Dutch racecar driver and owner of De Friis Motorsport.

Early Career

Jan started in karting at a late age of 16, in 1983, and proved his talent by winning multiple races in his 3 years of karting. He then moved to Formula Fords and was also very succesful there. His talent abroad was noticed when he was offered a drive in British F3 as a replacement for an injured driver. After placing 4th in his first F3 race, he was able to move full-time to British F3 at the age of 24. After 4 years in British F3, he hadn´t won the championship although winning many races. Despite this, he was offered a F3000 seat for 1995. His career in F3000 was decent, he won a total of 5 races, and placed pretty high in the final standings.

F1CC

In 1998 Jan began to search for sponsors as he wanted to move up to F1CC for 1999. In late November, 1998, he was confimed as a part-time driver for Arrows-BMW. He scored points in his first ever F1CC race in Australia. Unfortunately his promising career in F1CC was demolished after the series collapsed after Spanish GP qualifying.

After F1CC

After F1CC, Jan moved back to F3000 for the rest of 1999. In 2000 he tried to make a breakthrough in America, but after non-succesful season in CART, he moved back to Europe and to F3000. But his career halted after a serious accident in the 10th round at Hungaroring. After 2001, he hasn't raced actively and hasn´t raced open-wheelers since, but he has driven touring cars at selected races, like Nürburgring 24 hours, with varying success. Currently he is also the reserve driver for his own team in RoLFS.

De Friis Motorsport

In 2003 Jan started De Friis Motorsport and his team is currently present in Formula Ford, Formula 3, WTCC, WRC and RoLFS. His team has recieved backing from Citroen and is also a part of Citroen Racings young driver program.

In rallying, De Friis Motorsport is Citroens semi-factory team and they have had moderate success. De Friis Motorsport also runs Citroens factory team in WTCC, running the DS3.

After many succesful years in lower formulae, De Friis Motorsport made an announcement that they are to move to Rejects of LFS with Karl van der Zwaart and pay-driver Helio Hernandez. As teams are allowed to badge their engines, De Friis Motorsport has badged their Zyteks as Citroen.