Marko Jantscher
Marko Jantscher (born 21th January 1995 in Salzburg, Austria) is an Austrian race driver currently contracted to Falik Arrows. A former driver in German F3, he raced for Fusion Motorsports in his first F3RWRS season.
Contents
Early life
Marko was born in Salzburg to Florian, a director at a building aggregates company and Karina, a forensic scientist. The family moved to Düsseldorf when Jantscher was 12, where he first went karting. Discovering an innate talent, Jantscher entered a few championships in the west of Germany. Much to the anger of his rivals, the young Austrian dominated each championship he entered, bagging himself a drive in the ADAC Formel Masters championship.
Racing Career
ADAC Formel Masters and Formula 3
Jantscher managed to come 2nd in his first season of the ADAC Formel Masters series, which included wins in all three races at Oschersleben. He was picked up for German Formula 3, and this time came 3rd in the championship with 289 points.
2015: F3RWRS
Jantscher was announced alongside Leandro Moreira for the new Fusion Motorsports F3RWRS team. After a steady start, he had a run of five podiums in a row, culminating in a sprint race win at Donington. He won again in the sprint at the Norisring, and this run of good form alerted top teams like Jones Racing, Licor Beirão and Aston Martin. He signed a deal with Licor Beirão, but after the negotiations came to a close Jantscher endured some terrible luck. Having been hung out to dry at Ascari by his teammate Stefan Kuntz in the first Italy race, Nick Nurmester took him off in the second race. Suspension failure and electrical problems curtailed the hopes of more points at Fuji Speedway, taking the Austrian out of the title race. This hoodoo continued into the last race, where Daniel Melville made an overtaking manoeuvre on Jantscher at Surfers' Paradise. Unfortunatly, Jantscher had nowhere to go except the wall which capped off a disappointing end to an otherwise impressive year.
2016: F2RWRS
After some long negotiations, Jantscher was confirmed as a Licor Beirão driver for 2016 F2RWRS season, and will replace the F1RWRS-bound Alberto Cara. After a disappointing 2015, the Portuguese team dropped into pre-qualifying, and despite Jantscher's obvious pace he was held back by his team-mate João António Soares. Having failed to qualify for the first two races, Jantscher was approached by Prince Falik to switch teams having just fired Josh Carlisle. He accepted, and won first time out at Brands Hatch with Falik Arrows. This opened the floodgates for more points; Jantscher grabbed a fine 3rd at his home Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring and scored further points at the Norisring and Zandvoort. A lean spell came for Jantscher after; a lowly 9th at Monaco and a heavy shunt at Spa saw the Austrian pick up an injury which caused him to miss the race in Mexico.
Having returned to the field, Jantscher showed a tiny pang of race-rustiness as he instigated a collision with Alitalia's Dan Greenlaw. This saw Jantscher reach sufficient penalty points to receive a one race ban which would see him miss the race at Fuji Speedway and also count him out of the running for the F2RWRS title. He returned for the PDVSA Twin 100 rounds in Tropico, coming 2nd and 6th in order to claim an impressive 4th in the final standings.
2017: AutoReject 3.5
Jantscher signed a deal with Jones Racing to join their AutoReject 3.5 lineup for 2017 in place of Connor O'Heagan. It was implied that reigning champion Terry Hawkin would stay in the series to become the Austrian's team-mate, but the Brit returned to F2RWRS. Jones later signed Alessandro Marchesi to partner Jantscher.
Results
F3RWRS
Year | Team | Chassis | Engine | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | DC | Pts | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2015 | Fusion Motorsports | Fusion FM-01 | Audi F3-1 | AUS R1 4 |
AUS R2 21 |
TUR R1 4 |
TUR R2 9 |
MON SP 3 |
USA R1 2 |
USA R2 3 |
GBR R1 2 |
GBR R2 1 |
GER R1 21 |
GER R2 1 |
SPA SP 5 |
ITA R1 37 |
ITA R2 18 |
JPN R1 Ret |
JPN R2 34 |
SUR SP Ret |
5th | 69 |
F2RWRS
Year | Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | DC | Pts |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2015 | Aston Martin Motor Racing | TAS |
RSA |
TUR |
MON |
FRA |
GBR |
GER |
BEL |
AUT |
ITA |
NDS |
SIN |
JPN |
USA |
100 Ret |
39th | 0 | |
2016 | Licor Beirão Portugal Racing | AUS DNPQ |
PAC DNPQ |
GBR |
ITA |
AUT |
TUR |
USA |
GER |
NDS |
MON |
BEL |
MEX |
CHN |
JPN |
100 |
100 |
4th | 39 |
Falik Arrows | AUS |
PAC |
GBR 1 |
ITA Ret |
AUT 3 |
TUR 16 |
USA Ret |
GER 5 |
NDS 4 |
MON 9 |
BEL Ret |
MEX INJ |
CHN 6 |
JPN EX |
100 2 |
100 6 |