Laura Kraihamer

Laura Kraihamer is an Austrian driver who races a KTM X-Bow around Europe.

Her first season was 2012, and she was twelfth in the Rookie standings of the KTM X-Bow Battle series, with best finishes of sixth place. This is a one-make championship for KTM’s lightweight sportscar.

Despite running a full season in 2013, and maintaining her best finish, she was only 23rd in the X-Bow Battle.

In 2014, she was a much improved driver. She was second in the Sprint standings of the championship, with one win and four second places. Driving with Uwe Schmidt, she won the Endurance class of the X-Bow championship.

This year, she started to explore her options and tested cars for the FIA GT3 series and the VLN. She drove a BMW Z4 at the Nordschleife but it would not be for a couple of years that she actually competed there.

In 2015, she was part of a televised challenge, the "Race to 24", for drivers competing for a race seat in the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2016. Twenty-four aspiring racers took part. This was in addition to another season in the X-Bow; she was seventh in the Battle series and second in the Endurance championship, with Uwe Schmidt. They were racing as “Team Eat The Ball”.

2016 was another year with KTM, but in the European GT4 Championship. She was eighteenth in the Pro class, after a string of lower top-ten finishes. Her team-mate was Jamie Vandenbalck. She was racing for the Reiter Engineering team and they also entered her in three rounds of the X-Bow Battle series. She was second once and third once and was the best of six Reiter drivers.

She had another season in the European GT4 championship in 2017, driving the X-Bow for the Reiter team. Her car was the best-performing Reiter entry, with third places at the Red Bull Ring and the Nürburgring. She was thirteenth in the championship.

She was also thirteenth in the X-Bow Battle series. She helped her team to seventh in the Team standings.

In 2018, she contested another European GT4 Championship with Team True, another KTM/Reiter-affiliated team. She shared her car with Reinhard Kofler. Overall, she secured one eighth place, at Zolder. She was 30th and 26th at Brands Hatch and did not finish the first Zolder race. Her best results came at the Red Bull Ring in the Central European GR4 Cup: a second and third in the Pro-Am class.

Team True also entered a car in the 2018 Nürburgring 24 Hours. Laura was part of an all-female team in an X-Bow, with Naomi Schiff, Rahel Frey and Lena Strycek. They finished in 39th place, second in the Cup X class.

True entered the ADAC GT4 championship in 2020, with Laura and Reinhard Kofler as its driver pair. It was a season of highs and lows, with an outright win at Oschersleben the biggest highlight. Unreliability issues meant that Laura was unable to maintain her momentum, although she did manage a third at Zandvoort. She was tenth in the championship.

A different True team was ninth in the 24 Hours of Catalunya, but the X-Bow did not get to the end of the Nurburgring 24 Hours. Laura joined Carrie Schreiner in the Girls Only Volkswagen Golf for a round of the VLN mid-season and finished second in class.

2020 was a difficult season with very few championships running full programmes, but Laura managed to compete in most of the VLN. She did three rounds with the Girls Only team, finishing second in class at the first round. She also formed part of the female-only team for the Nurburgring 24 Hours. The car spent a lot of time in the pits and the race was stopped temporarily during the night because of heavy rain, but she helped the three-woman team to a class third.

When she wasn't with Girls Only, she represented KTM at the Nurburgring for the fourth round of the VLN. She and her team-mate Reinhard Kofler were second in the KTM X-Bow Cup.

Laura's X-Bow made a couple of appearances in the DTM Trophy at Lausitz, finishing 16th and 18th, before she moved on to the 24H Series double six-hour race at Monza. This time she was driving a KTM GTX concept car with Eike Angermayr and Stefan Rosina. They won the first race outright and had hopes of an overall win, but a series of problems dropped them to 16th in the second part, third in class.

Branching out, Laura accepted a couple of guest drives for the Engstler Hyundai team in the German TCR championship. She was sixth and eighth at Lausitz.

True Racing entered Laura into the whole DTM Trophy in 2021, driving the new X-Bow. It was not one of her strongest years, although better than her DTM debut. She had a best finish of ninth at the Red Bull Ring and a good finishing record, but ended the season in 20th.

Teichmann Racing ran her in the X-Bow in one NLS race and the Nurburgring 24 Hours. She did not finish the former, but was seventh in the Cup X class in the latter, 75th overall.

At the end of the season she tried something completely new, assisted by a new sponsor. She raced a Mercedes 300SL Gull Wing at the Goodwood Members' Meeting, finishing 23rd in the Moss Trophy.

A shorter season followed for Laura in 2022. She began the year with True Racing in the Fanatec GT2 European Series, in the X-Bow GT2 concept car. She and Kris Rosenberger were seventh and sixth at Imola, but a pair of DNFs in the next round at the Red Bull Ring signalled the end of their involvement.

Driving a different X-Bow, she entered the Nurburgring 24 Hours with the Teichmann team. Despite troubles during the night, they won the CupX class and were 58th overall.

Laura is from a motorsport family; her brother Dominik also races sportscars.

She has an official FIA ranking of Silver.

(Image copyright european.gt4series.com)