The DTM field was a changed bag after Saturday’s carnage: How race control ensured things were suddenly so civilised on Sunday morning
After yesterday’s carnage at the Norisring, there was a DTM race on Sunday without any major incidents and courageous overtaking manoeuvres – and even after the start, everyone drove through the Dunlopkehre in a well-behaved manner and without any contact. But how did it come about that the wild DTM crowd suddenly seemed to have changed overnight?
“They told us that we had to pay for the damage ourselves,” joked third-placed Abt Audi driver Rene Rast after the race. “No, we had a briefing – and the race director said that we can’t drive like this, that this is unacceptable. We all agreed to that.”
In fact, the drivers’ briefing, held at 8:15 this morning, made all the difference. “We’ve all been hit on the head already”,
Start procedure has been redefined by race control
“By the race control, by the stewards, who then have to decide accordingly,” the Austrian points to Christian Vormann and Oliver Grodovski, who this time are standing in for race director Scot Elkins, who was prevented from attending the Formula E race in Marrakech.
But the US-American, who was on the plane today, also got involved, “It was actually an open discussion. The drivers had a few points as well, as did the race directors,” said Auer.
In the process, race control announced tougher penalties in the race and set a new starting procedure after seven drivers had been victims of the starting collision the previous day. “Until now, we were allowed to leave the formation on the grid to a certain extent, so we could pull out a little bit to the left and a little bit to the right to see the lights,” explained Rast.
Drivers were only allowed to leave formation at green light
“But today the race director said that there is no room for that, that we are not allowed to leave the formation and have to stay behind the car in front of us. So I said to myself, ‘Don’t move until someone else does’. I tried to follow that, but I don’t know what the start looked like. It should have looked better though.”
In fact, the instruction was that pilots must not move out of formation until the green light was given. And that actually went well, which meant that there were no further re-launches – and thus the risk of crashes also decreased.
Still, some drivers were worried before the start that there would be another wreck in the first corner. “Yesterday, a rocket hit me from behind,” says winner Felipe Fraga, who was thundered into the rear by Walkenhorst BMW driver Esteban Muth at the first re-start the day before. “But I wanted to brake normally again today. ”
Fraga tried to prevent the worst before the start
That’s why he had spoken to Walkenhorst BMW driver Marco Wittmann and Winward Mercedes driver Maximilian Götz, who were on the same row directly behind the pole-setter, before the start. “I said to Marco and Maxi: ‘Please let us drive normally through the first corner, then you can drive like crazy, but not in the first corner, because I absolutely have to finish the race today’.”
Wittmann in particular caused Fraga, who has already experienced numerous retirements this season, concern before the start: “The BMWs always start like crazy because they have so much power, but luckily everything was quiet then anyway.”
According to GruppeM Mercedes driver Maro Engel, the fact that there were hardly any incidents in the race – David Schumacher was visibly uncomfortable about driving into the rear of Ricardo Feller – was also due to the announcement by the race stewards that they would take a tougher line.
Race control “too petty”? Engel wants mediocrity
“In general, it was certainly the case that the driving standards were very tough yesterday – and that nothing had been done there in the past,” said Engel, who was shot down by Mirko Bortolotti the previous day. “That’s why it was decided to be a bit tougher. ”
Today, however, they were almost too tough, he thinks. “I got a caution today because I leaned very slightly on Philipp Eng when I was braking for the pit lane. That was a bit petty, but I think they wanted to show a race without any major incidents today. And we succeeded in doing that.”
In the future, he said, it was now a matter of “finding the mediocrity”. One person who doesn’t think the drivers’ briefing was the deciding factor, on the other hand, is Grasser Lamborghini driver Mirko Bortolotti: “What we saw yesterday was just not normal, so I didn’t expect to see anything similar today – and the drivers’ briefing didn’t make the difference in my opinion.”
He said that was because the quality in the driver field was “very high”. “The guys know how to drive – and what we saw yesterday was just shit. “
