Reto Grütter
| Reto Grütter | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Nationality |  Switzerland | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | July 17, 1984 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bike number | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Reto Elias Grütter (17 July 1984) is a Swiss sidecarcross passenger and the 2007 and 2008 Sidecarcross World Champion.
Reto Grütter's name can sometimes be found to be, wrongfully, spelled Reto Grutter.
Sidecarcross world championship results
[edit]Reto Grütter entered the sidecarcross world championship in 2003 as a nineteen-year-old in the French GP in Pernes Les Fontains, 27 April 2003, becoming the passenger for his countryman Ueli Müller. They raced together in the world championship for four seasons from 2003 to 2006, a 15th place overall in 2005 being their best result but never finishing better than eighth in a race. After the 2006 season, Grütter replaced the Belgian Sven Verbrugge as passenger for Daniël Willemsen who had won his fifth world championship this season. The new combination Willemsen / Grütter dominated the 2007 season in clear fashion, winning 15 out of 16 races and retaining Team Willemsens world championship. Grütter won his first GP on 9 April 2007 in the season opener in Oldebroek, Netherlands. On top of the world championship, the combination also took out the Dutch title. In the 2008 season, Grütter continued to race with Willemsen[1] but an injury prevented him from taking part in the first race of the season and Willemsen replaced him with Bruno Kaelin for the first round. In race fourteen of the season, the team was disqualified after winning the race due to Grütter losing a glove, after a protest by Kristers Sergis.[2] The team took out the 2008 world championship with a 97-point margin to second-placed Kristers Sergis.
At the end of the 2008 season, Willemsen and Grütter split and the later was without a ride for the 2009 world championship season. He raced with Andy Bürgler in the 2009 Swiss championship, winning the national title comfortably.[3]
Season by season
[edit]| Season | Driver | Equipment | Position | Points | Races | Wins | Second | Third |
| 2003 | Ueli Müller
|
Kawasaki-JHR | 44 | 10 | 10 | — | — | — |
| 2004 | Ueli Müller
|
Kawasaki-JHR | 29 | 49 | 16 | — | — | — |
| 2005 | Ueli Müller
|
Kawasaki-VMC | 15 | 126 | 22 | — | — | — |
| 2006 | Ueli Müller
|
Zabel-VMC | 16 | 100 | 16 | — | — | — |
| 2007 |  Daniël Willemsen
|
Zabel-VMC | 1 | 375 | 16 | 15 | — | — |
| 2008 | Daniël Willemsen
|
Zabel-VMC | 1 | 495 | 22 | 19 | — | 1 |
| Overall 2003 - 2008 | 1055 | 102 | 34 | — | 1 |
Source:"The John Davey Pages - Reto Grütter". John Davey. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
- Passengers in italics.
Honours
[edit]World Championship
[edit]- Champions: (2) 2007, 2008
Belgium
[edit]- Champions: (1) 2007
Netherlands
[edit]- Champions: (2) 2007, 2008
Switzerland
[edit]- Champions: (2) 2002, 2009
References
[edit]- ^ ENTRYLIST WC SIDECAR MX - OSS (NL)
- ^ Team Willemsen website - No points in second heat GP Germanie?! Archived 2008-10-10 at the Wayback Machine (in Dutch) accessed: 5 August 2008
- ^ Motocross - Diverse Meister (in German) Article on sidecarcross championships in 2009, accessed: 7 November 2009