David Schumacher accuses Rene Rast of destroying his race at Hockenheim: How his father encourages him and why the protest was dismissed
Big anger at David Schumacher and his father Ralf after the final DTM race of the 2023 season in Hockenheim Triggered by Schubert-BMW driver Rene Rast, with whom the Winward-Mercedes driver had clashed in the fight for tenth place on the sixth lap immediately after the restart.
“The car was running well, the pace was right, the top 10 were in sight,” said Schumacher. “Unfortunately, this unfair action ruined the race for me. The underbody of my car was damaged, nothing really worked. Many thanks to my colleague!” the Winward Mercedes driver directed at Rast. The latter ended up third, while Schumacher lost seven positions and only finished in 16th place.
Ralf Schumacher also had his say on the incident – and came down hard on the race organizers. The car was “unfortunately so damaged” by Rast’s “unfair driving”, “that the possible points were gone”,
“Race control suddenly issues warning instead of penalty “
“In addition a race control, which for such an offence suddenly a warning instead of a punishment, as intended in the regulations, pronounces! Very unfortunate and unfair. Still, a strong drive,” says the ex-Formula 1 and DTM driver, backing up his son.
Because the race organizers had issued a warning for the action, of which only the outcome could be seen on the TV broadcast. And since three warnings result in a penalty and it was only the second warning for Rast in the current season, the three-time champion got away with it. But they didn’t want to leave it at that.
Why the Winward protest was dismissed
Because after the race, Schumacher’s Winward team filed a protest against the decision so that the case would be reopened. However, this was dismissed as invalid. The reason was not the merits of the case, but the fact that the protest had arrived 51 minutes after the race result was published, even though the teams only have half an hour to do so.
Why race director Sven Stoppe had “only” issued a warning against Rast during the race? It was because he considered a penalty lap penalty to be excessive. The experienced man drove hard in the season finale and on Sunday also issued warnings to Franck Perera, Marco Wittmann and Ayhancan Güven for pushing a rival off the track.
Incidentally, cautions are part of the penalty catalog in the DTM, just like penalty lap penalties – and can be issued by the race director at any time in the event of an offense.
Rast: “There was no contact, there was nothing there “
Due to the fuss in the aftermath of the race, Rast also had video footage of the incident sent to him to assess the situation. “There was no contact, there was nothing. Therefore, I can’t blame myself. “
He had “looked at the onboard again – and it’s about the situation after the safety car phase, where I overtake David Schumacher on the outside in Turn 2,” he elaborates. “He then tries to overtake me again on the outside in Turn 3. You can clearly see that I’m trying to give him the space.”
He himself, Rast says, “even goes off the gas on the inside in Turn 3, but it looks like he’s trying to take too much momentum, just runs out of road, slides off the track understeering and then goes into the grass.” And that’s without contact.
Rast has Schumacher deja vu: “Thomas makes it, David doesn’t “
Interestingly, Rast later experienced a similar situation with winner Thomas Preining – when the Schubert BMW driver came out of the pits with cold tires ahead of the “Grello”.
“Thomas is on the outside in Turn 3, overtakes me normally on the outside – and he makes it,” Rast said. “There’s no contact and he overtakes me – and that’s it. So the same maneuver happened again midway through the race. Thomas made it, David unfortunately didn’t. There’s nothing more to say about it. “