Racers at Home Series: Dennis Olsen

The latest subject for this Racers at Home series is Dennis Olsen. Olsen is the reigning Intercontinental GT Challenge champion and a former Porsche young professional driver. He’s a former winner of the Bathurst 12 Hours and has extensive links with Porsche. Olsen was hoping for a big 2020 season but has had to hit the pause button thanks to Covid-19.

Q1) First of all, where have you been spending the lockdown?

First of all I had to spend the 14 first days inside as I was testing in Paul Ricard when the lockdown came. After that I’ve been busy with coaching, exercising as well as preparing for whatever will come at the end of the year (hopefully). I also had some time to catch up some time with friends and family.

Q2) How have you been filling your time?

I’ve been trying to spend time on what is important to me – it’s been pretty boring to be honest to stay at home for such a long time, but I’ve kept myself pretty busy all the time. So right now I’m just hoping to get back on the race track as soon as possible.

Q3) We’ve seen multiple GT makes scale back their racing plans, how much do you think Covid-19 will affect motorsport?

It’s a sport that requires a lot of sponsorship, money and it is and will be tough for everyone to keep on going as if nothing happened. Hopefully everybody can come through this crisis and get back competing as we did in January at Daytona.

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Olsen (left) partnered Matt Campbell (center) and Dirk Werner (right) combined for their Bathurst 12 Hour victory in 2019. Photo: Motorsport.com

Q4) The IMSA season is due to resume in late June, do you think this is realistic?
I do really hope this can be possible. Even though the championship can resume, it might be hard for me to travel. So fingers crossed that I can be there once we finally can see the green flag on track again.
Q5)Have you been joining the online sim racing trend recently?
I would like to and trying to get the equipment needed to be able to join some E-Sport while waiting for the real season to get started again.
Q6)What has been your career highlight to date in your young career?
My career highlight was to win the IGTC championship last year. We were competing against the best of the best, and the championship was not decided until the checkered flag.
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Olsen (center) celebrating his IGTC title with his Porsche team mates. Photo: Porsche 

Q7)What is your favourite race track and why?
Nordschleife is to me still a favorite, due to the dangers and consequences the track can give. But I do really love the tracks in the US generally as they still are ”old fashion” race tracks with small margin for errors.
Q8)What is the biggest thing you miss about racing?
First of all it’s driving the cars, and fighting for victories – but definitely also the atmosphere on track with the team members and everyone around on track.
I would like to thank Dennis for giving up the time to answer these questions. We wish him the best of luck for the future. Be sure to follow him on Twitter here and Facebook here.
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