How the DTM driver pairings at AMG will change for the 2022 DTM season, what role Luca Stolz and Maro Engel will play and what’s behind Götz’s HRT departure
Driver rochade in the camp of the factory-supported Mercedes-AMG teams for the 2022 DTM season! And the biggest surprise: according to information from ‘Motorsport-Total.com’, champion Maximilian Götz will not be competing for his championship-winning team HRT this year, but will take the number 1 car with him to Christian Hohenadel’s Winward squad, where he will be team-mates with Lucas Auer.
Hardly anyone would have expected this, as the 35-year-old said after the season that he would feel at home with Hubert Haupt’s team. And the Nürburgring-based team also had the impression that the champion’s stay would be a mere formality.
At HRT, however, Mercedes-AMG works driver Luca Stolz will now take Götz’s place. The 26-year-old impressed in his guest start in the Toksport-WRT-Mercedes at the Nürburgring last year with second place, which he later lost due to a penalty for a pit accident. Stolz was in action for HRT as recently as last weekend at the Dubai 24 Hours.
Maro Engel celebrates DTM comeback
Indian Arjun Maini, who at times surprised with speed at the end of the season last year in the GetSpeed-Mercedes and who has just been nominated by HRT for the Asian Le Mans Series, is to act as Stolz’s team-mate. He replaces the Monegasque Vincent Abril, who has parted company with AMG.
That leaves the factory-supported Mercedes-AMG team GruppeM, which will field two cars this year: At Kenny Chen’s racing team, 36-year-old GT3 veteran and ex-DTM driver Maro Engel is set to make his second comeback. The Nordschleife specialist already drove for the Mücke team in the DTM from 2008 to 2011, before returning for a season with HWA in 2017 and celebrating his only victory in Moscow.
When it comes to filling the second cockpit, it looks like Spanish AMG works driver Daniel Juncadella will stay with the team and pilot the second GruppeM Mercedes.
How it came to the split between Götz and HRT
But how did it come about that Götz switched to the Winward squad, which emerged from the HTP racing team and for which the 35-year-old already competed in various series from 2013 to 2020? As recently as November, HRT managing director Ulrich Fritz – when asked about the plans for 2022 – had said: “The chance of us kicking out the champion is rather small, but nothing is fixed yet.”
If they have so much success together “and both want to continue next year, then it would be the wrong way not to do it together.”
Now, however, that is exactly what seems to have happened: according to information from Götz’s racing engineer Renaud Dufour, with whom the DTM champion celebrated some of his greatest successes, among others, spoke out against his long-time protégé staying with the HRT team because they thought they would have a better chance with Stolz. And this despite the fact that they would lose their number 1 driver.
DTM winner Ellis no longer on the grid in 2022
As a result, the defending champion was placed with the Winward team by Mercedes-AMG, where he will have a new team-mate in Auer. This is, of all people, the man who gave Götz the victory at the controversial Norisring finale and thus helped him to the title.
What will become of the Swiss Philip Ellis, who even celebrated a victory at the Lausitzring in 2021 and will now be replaced by Götz? As Winward announced in a press release more than a week ago, the 29-year-old will not only compete in the 24-hour classic at Daytona this year, but will also contest the remaining races of the IMSA SportsCar Championship in a Mercedes-AMG GT3 together with Russell Ward.
And the twelve-race weekend calendar of the US series’ GTD class includes three overlaps with the DTM, which is why Ellis will leave the traditional series.
