Why the decision to stage the first DTM Electric season in 2024 must be made now, what the bottlenecks are and what Gerhard Berger’s plan looks like
The DTM presented the spectacular shell of the DTM Electric prototype at the 2021 season finale at the Norisring – albeit still without a roadworthy vehicle. But what happens now with the E-project, which envisages racing cars with over 1,000 hp and was originally planned as a framework series from 2023?
“We will need another twelve months until we are ready with the prototype,” says DTM boss Gerhard Berger, making it clear that the vehicle is not to cover its first metres until 2023. A start of the racing series is planned for 2024 at the earliest.
But if they really want to launch a field of around 20 cars at the beginning of 2024, then the project is in a key phase.
A year and a half lead time on parts ordering for racing season
Because to get the necessary parts for the largely uniform silhouette prototypes similar to the Class 1 model in time. The lead time – also because of Corona, Brexit and the Ukraine crisis – is considered to be one and a half years. For the electric motor and batteries alone, there are waiting times of at least 46 weeks.
Bergers DTM Electric Plan: “Then it’s a shoe in “
That’s why Berger puts the plan to put the prototype on track in 2023 and contest the first season in 2024 into perspective. “There is no point at all in setting the timetable in concrete terms now,” says the Austrian.
“The first thing we want to do now is build our prototype. Because that’s the section that will excite the fans. And if the fans are excited, then the next thing is to get the manufacturers or the OEMs excited. Then it becomes a shoe-in. Whether that will be in late 2023, mid-2024 or late 2024 is secondary. Primary is when the prototype can be shown to the fans and when we have the first reaction from the fans. “
DTM seeks strategic partner for funding
In addition, the DTM organisation ITR is currently in need of financial support in order to be able to handle the project. “I am looking for a strategic investor for my e-project,” says Berger. “I would like to be much faster, because technically we are already relatively far. But the prototype costs real money.”
Currently, two well-known partners are on board with electric pioneer Schaeffler and the cooling specialists from Mahle, but that is not enough, as Berger has been running ITR alone since the manufacturers pulled out at the end of 2020. They have already “released a large part”, says Berger, but part of the project “still hangs on the financing”.
That the new technology is expensive is proven, for example, by the FIA’s electric GT project: that a prototype costs close to two million euros. The costs of the four electric motors per DTM Electric vehicle alone – only one is used in Formula E – should not be underestimated.
Should the project have to be postponed by another year due to the difficult circumstances and not start as a racing series until 2025, Berger could live with that.
“That wouldn’t be a huge problem, because we also got the message from the manufacturers that most of them won’t introduce their cars until 2025,” he alludes to the manufacturers’ electric plans. For them, the DTM Electric is supposed to serve as a stage to promote their production E-cars with a vehicle silhouette.
During the development of the prototype, the ITR acted independently, but let the needs of the car manufacturers flow in. In the second step, it is planned that the car companies will get involved as in the old Class 1 DTM, as Berger clarifies: “We have to create a product where the manufacturers then say: this is what we need. “
