Benjamin Goethe might not be he most famous name in Denmark just yet, but he sportscar community already knows his name from a lot of GT3 racing.
The Danish-German-English racing driver participates this year in the FIA World Endurance Championship for the Garage 59 team, racing in their McLaren #58 in the LMGT3 category, and showed good pace at the opening round in Imola in April.
The Goethe family is already well known in endurance racing, with his father, Roald, having raced in the FIA World Endurance Championship and the 24 hours of Le Mans. Younger brother Oliver Goethe is currently competing in the FIA Formula 2, and has focused more on single seaters, but has raced with Roald and Benji in the past. The mother of Oliver and Benjamin is Danish, so they are actually juggling three nationalities.
Racing24-7.net met up with him – and first thing was to clear up one thing.
Should we do the interview in Danish or English?
“I do speak a little Danish, but it’s better to do it in English,” was his answer with a bit of a forlorn smile – but in quite OK danish.
It was a difficult weekend for your car, following the qualifying. How do you think the race went?
“For our car, it was a good comeback in general, from P16 to P7. It was a pretty faultless race – made up a misjudgement on strategy, in regards to predicting when the rain would arrive, which it never really did in the race. So we could maybe had finished a couple of places in front, but we will take P7, from where we started.”
Photo: JJ Media
Are you confident about Spa Francorchamps? You know that track from the 24 hours races that you have done.
“Yeah, Spa is probably my favourite track. It’s a track that really suits the McLaren. So a lot of confidence going into Spa – it’s a track that the team knows really well. So really looking forward, and hopefully being a bit further up the grid.”
And it’s a track that Alexander knows very well too.
“Yeah, and he did a really good job on raceday at Imola – got a lot of positions in his first two stints. He was unlucky in qualy – I think he had the pace to get into Hyperpole, but of course it was a bit of a messy session, some of which was really not his fault. So I think that he has learned a lot, and he has the speed to be up there with the top Bronzes.”
What other programmes are you doing this year?
“WEC and GT World Challenge Endurance – not the sprints. I think, doing WEC and GT World Challenge Endurance, i’m doing 13 rounds already, and then maybe a bit of racing in the winter – we will see. It already keeps me busy enough (laughs).”
Benjamin Goethe, Alexander West, and Finn Gehrsitz will do FP1 and FP2 at Spa Francorchamps in Belgium today, with FP3 and Qualifying secheduled for tomorrow, and the 6 hours race on Saturday 9 May 2026.
