Stefan Kuntz

Stefan Kuntz (b. 28th January 1988 in Bonn, Germany) is a German racing driver, currently managed by Niko Nurminen.

Early career
After moving to the UK in his early teens he started driving in the Ginetta Juniors, followed by the G50s. A couple of good seasons in BTCC led to a customer SEAT drive, but after so-so results he switched to single seaters series AutoGP, finishing an impressive 2nd in the championship with 3 race wins. He stepped up to Formula Renault 2.0 and had also been hired by Virgin Inter Corse for their F3RWRS programme simultaneously. However, VIC collapsed soon after and his F3RWRS debut came to nothing.

RoLFS
He was then hired by VIC's buyer Scuderia Alitalia to race in the resurrected Rejects of LFS season, on loan at Grands Travaux Inutiles. Despite finishing 20th and last in his RoLFS debut, he took full advantage of the reversed grid system in the sprint race and went on to win it. However, his relationship with GTI turned sour after he was banned for one GP after numerous incidents at the South City sprint race, and he was permanently replaced by Nobushige Fukuda. One win and 12th in the championship was not enough, and he was released by the Scuderia Alitalia young driver programme, after only managing 11th in FR2.0 the same year.

Kuntz would briefly return to RoLFS by being one of the three drivers for Winton Racing's entry in the 2015 Aston 24 Hours endurance event. However, he never actually drove the car as Nathan Nurmester, who drove the car before him, proceeded to cause multiple accidents with an already-damaged car. Winton Racing was disqualified as a result.

F3RWRS
After being sacked by SAGS, it looked like his career was well and truly over, before Niko Nurminen offered him a lifeline by entering him as a guest driver in the 2015 F3RWRS Monaco SuperPrix. However, his race ended when a botched pitstop led to him losing one of the wheels during the race. He was then loaned to Fusion Motorsports to replace underperforming Leandro Moreira from the German round onwards. However, he didn't exactly impress in his first outing as he clashed with team mate Marko Jantscher and finished 29th after starting from 19th position. In the second German race he did a lot better, eventually finishing 8th, his first points finish in the series. At Spa he was again involved in a collision and eventually managed a mere 26th, and in the first Italian race he again clashed with his team mate before finishing 17th. Another poor performance at the second race, where he finished 23rd and nearly lost a position to a Dofasco car, led him to being sacked from Fusion Motorports with immediate effect.

GT-Rejects World Championship
The numerous incidents during his Fusion Motorsports stint in the F3RWRS had ruined his single-seater reputation, so Kuntz decided to instead take the offer to drive for Racing Team Solvalou in the newly-founded GT-Rejects World Championship, sharing a Lamborghini Murciélago with Darren Cardel.

The move would turn out to be good, as the entry would eventually finish 5th at the opening round in Malaysia. However at the very next race in Australia they were off the pace and finished 11th, outside of the points, but were promoted to 10th after Claude Vergne and Fernando Valdes were given a penalty for dangerous driving. At the Italian round they were running well before colliding with Frank Zimmer and Frank van Nifterick, eventually finishing a distant 24th. In both France and Canada they finished 20th, with the latter race being littered by a number of collisions. From the US round onwards Kuntz was swapped to the starting driver position, which immediatedly paid off; they scored the fastest lap and competed for the win, but lost too much time behind lapped cars and eventually finished 2nd. The same result was repeated in Germany, although this time the gap to the winners was larger.

GT-Rejects World Championship
*Season in progress