Wednesday, 8th July 2020 |
9:25 AM BST
BMW Team Schnitzer driver, Bruno Spengler, won yesterday’s DTM finale at Hockenheim and in so doing clinched the 2012 DTM drivers title ahead of Mercedes driver Gary Paffett, who also finished second in yesterday’s race.
If you haven’t yet watched the opening round of DTM 2012 from Hockenheimring last weekend, then you’re missing out on a cracking race, with Mercedes finishing first and second ahead of Mattais Ekström’s Audi in 3rd, and the best placed BMW of Andy Priaulx in sixth.
Despite securing pole position in yesterday’s qualifying, Audi driver Mattais Ekström lost the lead to arch-rivals Mercedes and never recovered it, finishing in 3rd place, with Andy Priaulx chasing down Audi driver Mike Rockenfeller to finish in 6th, as the best-placed BMW driver.
The 2012 DTM championship is underway, and after plenty of pre-season speculation we can now judge the performance of each of the three premium manufacturers – Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
If you’re a UK-based fan of Germany’s DTM (Deutsche Tourenwagen-Meisterschaft) series, then you may be wondering how to catch up with the action on TV or online.
Michael and Ralf Schumacher – perhaps the world’s most famous racing brothers, drive for the same company, Mercedes-Benz. And with the 2012 DTM season starting next weekend, what better way to show the German car maker’s credentials that to film both of them in their DTM and F1 cars on the same track.
This weekend 72,000 fans gathered at a special DTM presentation in Wiesbaden to meet the teams and drivers, watch racing taxis perform spectacular drifts, lightning-quick pit stops, and see the new DTM contenders from Mercedes, Audi and newcomer BMW up close.
On Tuesday 8 May, Jacques Villeneuve will take to the Fiorano track at the wheel of the 312 T4 driven by his father Gilles in 1979, the season that he and Jody Scheckter brought the Scuderia the Constructors’ title, with the South African also taking the Drivers’ World Championship.
The grid will certainly be ‘colourful’ when the DTM season kicks off at the Hockenheimring on April 29th. We’ve now seen both Audi and BMW team liveries, and thankfully they’ve steered well away from the anodyne silver sported by their AMG Mercedes rivals.
We saw a prototype of Audi’s A5 DTM challenger at the season finale in Hockenheim last year, but this is the real thing – the design which will now be frozen for the rest of the season.
Paul Di Resta (AMG Mercedes C-Class) finished second in the final race of the 2010 DTM in Shanghai winning his first DTM Championship title. Gary Paffett (Salzgitter AMG Mercedes C-Class) won the Shanghai race and finished the season runner-up ahead of Bruno Spengler (Mercedes-Benz Bank AMG C-Class) who completed the Mercedes-Benz 1-2-3 success in the drivers’ championship.
Sunday’s result represented the 9th win for Mercedes in a season of 11 DTM rounds, sealing both drivers and manufacturers titles.
Scotsman Paul Di Resta took the German touring car (DTM) championship lead today at Hockenheim, after his third race win in a row. The Mercedes DTM driver, due to move into a full-time F1 seat with Force India in 2011, was able catch and pass pole-sitter Timo Scheider who was joined on the podium by fellow-Audi driver Mike Rockenfeller.
