After Rene Rast, the next DTM regular driver to concentrate on the new Le Mans prototypes is Nico Müller: Tomczyk does not believe in negative consequences for the DTM
The sports car sector is facing a golden future: the top category with hypercars and LMDh prototypes will soon feature almost a dozen manufacturers. Together with the GT3 class, whose regulations also govern the cars used in the DTM, it will become the defining category. And after Rene Rast, another DTM regular driver, Nico Müller, has announced that he will concentrate on prototypes in the future.
Under these circumstances, will there be a competitive situation between the World Endurance Championship WEC, the US IMSA series and the DTM? Ex-champion Martin Tomczyk, who has now taken over as series manager of the platform and thus has more responsibility, does not believe so.
“I don’t see any real conflict between the DTM and the LMDh class, because the DTM is GT racing, the LMDh is prototype racing. I think there are even synergies and of course I’m happy because the manufacturers are now more involved in motorsport again, more interested in motorsport,” says Tomczyk.
Hypercar/LMDh another field of activity
In fact, a number of manufacturers are involved in the DTM as well, and will be involved in the new top class of endurance racing in the future. Ferrari is currently working on its LMH car and BMW, Lamborghini and Porsche are building LMDh prototypes. With the exception of the Lamborghini, all the cars are due to make their debut at next year’s 24 Hours of Daytona.
However, the manufacturer boom in the new hypercar and LMDh class also means: an additional field of activity for the factory drivers of the entering brands. This became clear not least when BMW had its star newcomer for 2023, three-time DTM champion Rene Rast, test in the M Hybrid V8 for the first time in Aragon.
With Sheldon van der Linde, Marco Wittmann and Philipp Eng, other DTM drivers were involved in the test phase of the BMW LMDh. In theory, this is a threatening scenario for the DTM, as the series boasts a predominantly factory driver line-up. Tomczyk brushes these concerns aside with his synergy commentary.
Martin Tomczyk: DTM will remain attractive
Instead, Tomczyk emphatically emphasises: “I think we are really attractive, we were really attractive and we will remain really attractive. Now we have our five pillars on the DTM platform and it’s a great range of what we offer to the spectators together with the DTM Electric coming in 2024.”
“What we offer our fans with our Fan Village and what we present to them on our platform is already quite good,” the former Audi and BMW driver is convinced. With Acura, Alpine, BMW, Cadillac, Ferrari, Glickenhaus, Lamborghini, Peugeot, Porsche, Toyota and Vanwall, a total of eleven brands have committed to the LMH/LMDh regulations.
n the 2022 season, Rast and Müller, the two official Audi works drivers, and Kelvin van der Linde and Ricardo Feller, two drivers from the customer sport pool, will be racing in the DTM. BMW will be fielding a factory trio in Eng, Sheldon van der Linde and Marco Wittmann.
DTM top drivers have Le Mans in their sights
Mercedes-AMG will field five performance and two junior drivers in Lucas Auer, Maximilian Buhk, Maro Engel, Maximilian Götz, Luca Stolz, Mikael Grenier and Arjun Maini. In the Porsche camp, Laurens Vanthoor and Thomas Preining are official works drivers. Mirko Bortolotti is the only Grasser driver with official Lamborghini factory status.
In the case of Rast (BMW), Müller (Peugeot), Vanthoor (Porsche) and Bortolotti (Lamborghini), it is already known that they will be involved in the prototypes in the future.
