Why Marco Wittmann’s Walkenhorst BMW from the 2021 DTM season is a real mile-eater and which legendary victory the team took with chassis 1509
Ex-Abt driver Sophia Flörsch had complained several times in 2021 that she had not had competitive material with her 2017 Audi R8 LMS. But as Walkenhorst team boss Niclas Königbauer reveals, the Walkenhorst BMW in which Marco Wittmann took two wins this season in the DTM in 2021 and was fighting for the title until the penultimate weekend is much older than Flörsch’s Audi chassis.
“The 1509 chassis was built in 2015 and delivered at the end of 2015,” team boss Königbauer tells ‘Motorsport-Total.com’. “It’s a piece of history for us because we already won the Spa 24 Hours with it in 2018. I estimate that it has done well over 70,000 kilometres.”
Königbauer is right about that, as after last week’s Vallelunga test, which also saw Walkenhorst’s brand new M4 GT3 in action for the first time, the M6 GT3’s mileage stands at a whopping 79,223 kilometres.
“Holy Cow” circled the globe twice
For estimation: That’s almost two circumnavigations of the earth. Or not quite 15 Le Mans distances (calculated according to Audi’s LMP1 distance record from 2010). By contrast, in the entire 2021 DTM season, including practice and qualifying, the teams only managed just over 5,000 kilometres per car.
“There is a lot of heart and soul in this car for us,” Königbauer gets emotional. “We have always called it our ‘holy cow’ ). It has never had a major accident and has had some nice successes. And it’s also the only M6 chassis we still have. We have sold all the others. “
Most memorable for Henry Walkenhorst’s squad was the star turn at the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps in 2018, when the 1509 chassis was also used, as it was the team’s first ever race run purely with professionals. Walkenhorst driver Christian Krognes and the two BMW works drivers Philipp Eng and Tom Blomqvist were responsible for the team’s biggest triumph to date.
“In the old days they used to say that a chassis would go soft “
In addition to numerous SRO and NLS races, the M6 GT3 was also used in 2017 and 2020 at the 24-hour race in Spa and in 2016, 2018 and 2020 at the classic Nürburgring-Nordschleife. Hardly anyone expected that it would also become a winning car in the DTM afterwards.
But how much is left of the original car? “After so many years, it is common that almost all components have been replaced,” says Königbauer. “But the chassis itself, in which the chassis number is stamped, is definitely original.”
Today, the age of a GT3 racer is no longer a problem, he says. “In the very old days, people used to say that a chassis would go soft,” the team boss explains. “But if you revise the car every time as it is intended, I don’t think a few kilometres have such a significant impact. It certainly wasn’t the case with us.” He can only “speak of the M6” in this respect, he relativises.
Legendary M6 GT3 remains in DTM look for the time being
What will happen now with the legendary bolide, which will be replaced by the M4 GT3 in 2022? “It will no longer be used in races, but at the moment it is still serving us for testing purposes,” says Königbauer.
So it could well happen that the M6 GT3 in Wittmann’s DTM design is once again caught on a race track. “We haven’t defoiled it, so it’s still in its original condition as it was after the DTM finale at the Norisring,” says the Walkenhorst team boss. “And we haven’t thought about whether we will change anything on it yet. For the time being, it will stay like that, because we associate the design with fond memories. “
