2013 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters Season

lukenwolf

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Greetings vrom ze Fatherland
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I wanted to start this thread yesterday, but I forgot :oops:

Anywho. This is the place to discuss this year's DTM season. I'll use this thread to write down my thoughts about this season, whenever something springs to mind and I encourage others to join in.

2013 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters
http://img708.imageshack.**/img708/3010/dtm2013960x300px.jpg
image (c) brandhatch.co.uk

The History
The early history of DTM started out in 1972 as the DRM (German Motorracing Championship), a series that saw the likes of Ford Escorts, BMW 320's Porsche 956's, Ford Capri's and Lancia Beta's go head to head. Many former, future and current F1 drivers were taking part, like Jochen Maas, Stefan Bellof (champion 1984), Thierry Boutsen or Jonathan Palmer. Towards the mid-80's costs were spiraling out of control and the DRM was discontinued after the 1985 season and continued under a new set of rules as the DTM (Deutsche Tourenwagenmeisterschaft, German Touring Car Championship).

The DTM had started out in 1984 running parallel to the declining DRM and took on the refugees from DRM after 1985. The first 'proper' season 1986 saw an almost unprecedented number of different cars (Rover Vitesse, Mercedes-Benz 190E, Volvo 240 Turbo, BMW 635, Ford Sierra, BMW 325, Ford Mustang, Nissan Silvia, Chevrolet Camaro, Opel Manta, Ford Capri) were on the grid. Although the number of Formula 1 affiliated drivers reduced significantly, the early DTM saw the emergence of drivers, who would go on to shape the DTM for many years, like Klaus Ludwig, Kurt Thiim, J?rg van Ommen, Manuel Reuter and especially serial champion Bernd Schneider.
The hayday of DTM started in 1991 and 1992. With the likes of Jacques Laffite, Michael Schumacher, Oliver Grouillard, Christian Danner, Keke Rosberg and Bernd Schneider the trend of former or future F1 drivers reemerged and should grow stronger over the years. The year 1992 saw the so far only win of a Lady driver, when Ellen Lohr beat team mate Keke Rosberg for the win at Hockenheim in a Mercedes 190E. It was also the last time that DTM raced on the legendary N?rburgring Nordschleife with both race wins going to Klaus Ludwig in a Mercedes 190E.

Disaster struck after the 1994 season, when a certain Bernhard E and the FIA took a shining to DTM and the series was renamed International Touring Car Championship for the 1995 season. Costs skyrocketed as the cars were nearing F1 levels of technology and complexity. With Mercedes-Benz, Opel and Alfa-Romeo only three manufacturers remained for 1995 and 1996 and the field internationalized further with a flurry of future and former F1/CART drivers pouring in (Stefano Modena, Alessandro Nannini, Gabriele Tarquini, Nicola Larini, Giancarlo Fisichella, JJ Lehto, Dario Franchitti, Michele Alboreto, Keke Rosberg, Jan Magnussen, Yannick Dalmas, Juan Pablo Montoya, Christian Fittipaldi, Aguri Suzuki, Alexander Wurz, Tony Kanaan)
After the 1996 season history repeated itself and the series collapsed under the massive costs.

Opel, a long-time stalwart of DTM started to push for a revival of a 'proper DTM' in 1998 by showing an Astra based design concept for a 'DTM 2000' car on the Essen Motor Show. Mercedes and Audi signaled interest, while BMW and Alfa-Romeo were principally interested, but preferred an international series rather than a national one. Further problems arose from differences in focus. While Opel's maxim was cost control, Mercedes was hell-bent on using rear wheel driven cars, while Audi insisted on using its trademark quattro all-wheel drive train.
After much deliberation, Mercedes and Opel agreed on using rear-wheel drive cars, which were to look as spectacular as the 90's cars, but with a lot of spec parts to keep the costs in check. The V8 naturally aspirated engines were based on NASCAR engines with the basic technology level upgraded to the correct century. Like NASCAR, DTM 2000 cars are technically silhouette cars.
FIA rules forbid more than one race abroad for a national championship (Meisterschaft in German), but plans were made to run races in neighbouring countries, so organizer ITR returned the iconic Moniker DTM, but the M came to stand for Masters, leading to the current name Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters. This allowed more than one race abroad. ITR were worried that a series would not be sustainable with only two committed manufacturers (Mercedes-Benz, Opel). Audi had withdrawn sulking, since nobody was willing to accept their insistence on all-wheel drive and although BMW had participated in the rule negotiations in 1999 they chose not to enter, concentrating on their F1 project instead. Two DTM stalwart private teams had produced DTM prototypes though. Zakspeed had created a car based on the Volvo C70 and Abt Sportsline had created one based on the Audi TT, which was the only suitable AUDI base at the time as Limousines were not permitted to be used as a base. While the Audi TT got a reluctant blessing from Audi, the Volvo sadly never made it, as Volvo denied permission to Zakspeed to race the car.

DTM made an immediate strong comeback upon its revival in 2000. With Bernd Schneider and Manuel Reuter the last DTM and ITC champions returned and DTM Methuselah Klaus Ludwig returned from retirement at the age of 50. With races at the East German venues at Oschersleben, Sachsenring and Eurospeedway Lausitz the series was now also becoming a truly all-German affair since until the 90s the series had only been running on west German tracks. The series became a three-way battle between Schneider, Ludwig and Reuter, with Schneider scoring the first title of the new DTM. he also had scored the last one of the previous incarnation. The Sachsenring race saw the last DTM win of Klaus Ludwig at the age of 50 and he ended the season in 3rd position. After the season he re-retired and continued to work for broadcasters ARD and ZDF, who's free live coverage played a major part in DTM's successful comeback.
In 2004 the rules saw another major rules overhaul, as the organizers allowed limousines as base cars, prompting Abt to abandon the TT and Audi decided to enter as a works effort based on the Audi A4. With Mercedes and Audi putting in serious efforts, Opel was left behind and decided to leave DTM after the 2004 season. Although a Zytek built MG effort based on the MG ZT was supposed to enter in 2005, it never came to fruition as MG went bust before the season. Left with only two manufacturers, ITR decided to introduce a weight penalty system that allowed private teams to compete with cars from previous years with newer cars getting additional weight. The coming seasons would see cars from three seasons compete.
In 2006 the Ladies returned to DTM with Vanina Ickx and Suzie Wolff. From 2006 to 2012 DTM had always at least two female drivers in the field.
After the end of their F1 project rumours surfaced in 2011 that BMW would return to DTM and in 2012, the Bavarians returned and took the field by storm winning both the drivers and constructors championships.
After the 2012 season a long-standing problem came to head with Mercedes-Benz being heavily criticized for creating a two-class society among their teams with the works-cars of HWA being competitive while their private teams were hardly able to challenge for points, which lead to the exit of Suzie Wolff and the retirements of David Coulthard, who had both spent the last two seasons racing for scraps at best in older Mercedes customer cars.
With the departure of Suzie Wolff and Rahel Frey, the 2013 season is the first one since 2005 with no woman on the grid.

The Future
In 2012 DTM organizer ITR and JGTC decided to synchronize regulations between the series, opening the opportunity for DTM cars to compete in JGTC500 and JGTC cars to enter the DTM from 2014. Joint races are also being considered. Additionally a DTM USA using the same regulations is currently planned as well.

The Contenders

People in italics are current or former DTM champions

Mercedes-Benz (DTM Mercedes AMG C-Coup?)
Gary Paffet (GBR)
Roberto Merhi (SPA)
Christian Vietoris (GER)
Robert Wickens (CAN)
Daniel Juncadella (SPA)
Pascal Wehrlein (GER) Youngest ever DTM driver at Age 18

Audi (Audi RS5 DTM)
Edoardo Mortara (ITA)
Filipe Albuquerque (POR)
Mattias Ekstr?m (SWE)
Jamie Green (GBR)
Mike Rockenfeller (GER)
Miguel Molina (SPA)
Timo Scheider (GER)
Adrian Tambay (FRA)

BMW (BMW M3 DTM)
Bruno Spengler (CAN)
Dirk Werner (GER)
Augusto Farfus (BRA)
Joey Hand (USA)
Martin Tomczyk (GER)
Andy Priaulx (GBR)
Marco Wittmann (GER)
Timo Glock (GER)


The Calender

The 2013 season sees a new venue on the calendar - Moscow.

May 5th Hockenheimring, Germany
May 19th Brands Hatch, Great Britain
Jun 2nd Red Bull Ring, Spielberg, Austria
Jun 16th Eurospeedway Lausitz, Klettwitz, Germany
Jul 14th Norisring, Nuremberg, Germany
Aug 4th Moscow Raceway, Russia
Aug 18th N?rburgring, Germany
Sep 15th Motorsport Arena Oschersleben, Germany
Sep 29th Zandvoort, The Netherlands
Oct 20th Hockenheimring, Germany

Ok, that's it for now. I'll add a race review of yesterday's race later on.

Cheers :cool:
 
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As usual, I will be supporting Andy Priaulx and BMW :D But this year I will definitely pay a lot of attention to Timo Glock's progress.
 
I came across the later half of the race yesterday and it was pretty entertaining.

And damn those BMW M3 DTM's look sexy. The Audi's aren't too bad either but seem kinda slow.

I hadn't heard about the future JGTC collaboration. That is going to be really interesting. Hopefully this will lead to a wider variety of cars in the field.
 
I hadn't heard about the future JGTC collaboration. That is going to be really interesting. Hopefully this will lead to a wider variety of cars in the field.

Let's see what's coming, they had this idea for some years now and nothing has happened since.
FIA GT wanted to do this back in 2004 aswell but both sides couldn't find an agreement. Could be the same here since both sides won't lose anything from their cars.

Still don't get the whole point of this though - they're supposed to be touring cars (which is already a joke) and they want to combine them with (sort of) GT cars? Hm...

In other news - John Hindhaugh mentioned throughout the WEC race in Spa-Francorchamps that maybe (2015/2016) a US-based DTM could appear?
 
Let's see what's coming, they had this idea for some years now and nothing has happened since.
FIA GT wanted to do this back in 2004 aswell but both sides couldn't find an agreement. Could be the same here since both sides won't lose anything from their cars.

Still don't get the whole point of this though - they're supposed to be touring cars (which is already a joke) and they want to combine them with (sort of) GT cars? Hm...

In other news - John Hindhaugh mentioned throughout the WEC race in Spa-Francorchamps that maybe (2015/2016) a US-based DTM could appear?

Unlike 2004 the agreement between JGTC and DTM has already been signed. The unified rules are coming in 2014. Both JGTC and DTM are more or less prototype silhouette cars. The DTM 2000 cars were never meant to be 'pure' touring cars, but they wanted to keep the iconinc moniker.

The DTM USA is also a done deal. Contracts have been signed and it is about to come in 2016.
 
Then let's see if some American cars are getting into it or not. And if so, will they come to the real DTM series aswell? Let's see, would be cool to get some more manufacturers.
 
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