Schubert BMW driver Rene Rast was passed by other drivers at the DTM season opener in Oschersleben and later retired: What went wrong and why he continued to race anyway
False start for Rene Rast in the 2025 DTM season: After finishing 17th in Saturday’s qualifying in Oschersleben, the Schubert BMW driver was 15th after the first lap, but was unable to keep up the pace and was passed by the rest of the field. With 20 minutes to go, the three-time champion finally gave up during a pit stop (race report).
“I already had an alarm on my dashboard during the formation lap: Engine Power low,” he said. “Something must have happened during the formation lap.” He was definitely “five to ten km/h slower on the straights,” he specified on ProSieben.
This was also reflected in his lap times, which were on average 1.5 seconds slower than those of his direct rivals. The top speed measurement showed him at 232.25 km/h at the end of the rankings: Ford Mustang driver Fabio Scherer was the fastest with 247.13 km/h. Teammate Marco Wittmann reached 243.79 km/h.
Clamp causes performance deficit
“You can see from the data that there is definitely a lack of power. We don’t know where it’s coming from,” said Rast, who was at a loss after not detecting any problems in qualifying. But what was the reason? In fact, an investigation after the race revealed that Rast had been lacking boost pressure. According to BMW, a clamp on an engine hose had come loose.
But why did Rast fight on until lap 27 despite the major disadvantage and only retire when the pit stop window closed?
“I think the team tried to stay out in case of a full-course yellow or safety car so that the pit stop strategy could flush us forward, which fortunately didn’t happen for the others,” Rast replied. “That’s why it made sense for us to retire after the pit stop, because there was no point in driving the car as nothing would have worked.”
Why Rast continued anyway
That makes sense, because last year Rast’s Schubert teammate Marco Wittmann would have won because he turned into the pit lane just seconds before a full-course yellow. His bad luck: he ran out of fuel shortly afterwards. Race director Sven Stoppe had announced that he would make sure that something like this did not happen, but it cannot be ruled out.
Incidentally, things went a little better for Wittmann on Saturday: the two-time DTM champion salvaged eighth place for Schubert at his home race on the Oschersleben circuit, which does not suit the BMW M4 GT3. Wittmann was also 0.235 seconds faster than Rast in qualifying, finishing tenth.
He lost time exclusively in the middle sector. “We tried a different procedure with both cars today in terms of warm-up behavior, just to see which direction to go in,” explains Rast. He drove three warm-up laps to warm up the tires via the brakes, Wittmann only two.
“Unfortunately, my tires weren’t in the window when it mattered, so we’ll just have to do better tomorrow,” Rast clarified.
