2010 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters Season Preview

Hockenheim will this weekend host the season opening round of the 2010 DTM, the eleventh season since the series was resurrected in 2000, where Mercedes will be hoping to end the dominance enjoyed by Audi, who have won the title in each of the last three years. Due to the cost reducing development freeze which restricts the teams from updating their 2009-spec contenders, the cars will remain unchanged, although there are new drivers, circuits and a rules package designed to give older 2008-spec cars a more level playing field on which to challenge the newer models. This change to the regulations allows 2008 cars to run 25 kilos lighter than 2009 cars, a tweak which has led to three of the four official pre season test days being headed by drivers of the older cars.
Leading the charge for honours this season will be Audi’s Timo Scheider, the German has won the last two titles and will be favourite to add an unprecedented third in a row, but it is difficult to decide who will be the biggest challenge to his attempt at rewriting the DTM history books. His main competition may well come from his own Abt Sportsline Audi team, who will run four other 2009-spec A4’s for 2007 champion Mattias Ekstrom, Briton Oliver Jarvis who moves up to a newer car after impressing last year, young Spaniard Miguel Molina and a new slim line Martin Tomczyk, fresh from shedding five kilos in a pre season attempt to bridge the gap to his compatriot. Team Rosberg will run a final 2009 Audi for Katherine Legge, as the 29 year old attempts to be the first female points scorer in the series. Three 2008-spec A4’s will be piloted by Audi prototype regulars, Mike Rockenfeller, Alex Premat and Markus Winkelhock, who will all be hoping to displace Mercedes’ Jamie Green as the top driver of an older car, after a remarkable season in 09 which saw the Briton triumph at the Norisring round. Mercedes will also field 08 C-Klasse’s for Susie Stoddart, Maro Engel, China’s Franky Cheng and David Coulthard, Britain’s all time record F1 points scorer and BBC pundit, who returns to competitive racing after a sabbatical in 2009, much to the delight of Mercedes motorsport boss Norbert Haug: “David is a great race driver, a likeable person and very competent. He perfectly fits to us.” The latest Mercedes cars have a formidable driver line up, bursting with F1 experience including 2005 DTM champion and long time McLaren test driver, Gary Paffett, Force India test and reserve driver Paul di Resta, Canadian nearly man Bruno Spengler, and six time GP winner Ralf Schumacher, whose rapid pre season showings have belied the underwhelming form of his tin top career to date.
The racing format remains unchanged with a four part qualifying session preceding a single race of around 170 kilometres, and the series will feature six rounds in Germany including the traditional Hockenheim curtain raiser, although the series will not finish at the circuit this year as a finale around the streets of Shanghai has been shoe horned in after the second Hockenheim event. Brands Hatch retains the British round, but Dijon loses out to accommodate the trip to China and Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo Circuit replaces Barcelona as host to Spain’s round. The series continues to draw bumper crowds, with 110,000 fans attending the launch event at Wiesbaden at the weekend, and over 90,000 again expected to descend on the Rhine Valley on Sunday.
German title holder Scheider is focussed on the task in hand, and explained what it takes to win the coveted title at the recent test session in France, “The first few races of the season are particularly important. There you have to do well and score points. After that, the right spirit, a good car and a top team are decisive. And I have all of these”. Round 1 this weekend should be a good barometer for the prospects of the two manufacturers for the season, after all the manufacturer who has won the season opener has gone on to clinch the driver’s title in each of the last five seasons, but it is by no means the be all and end all, expect a fight to the wire before we will get to find out who will become 2010 champion in the Europe’s premier touring car series.

Breakthrough

Sorry for the brief silence on the page, I have had a hectic few days, I will not bore you with the details. Great news (for me anyway) this week as I had a reply from the Editor of a website called 'The Checkered Flag' here in the UK inviting me to be a regular contributor to the site. I accepted, obviously, and have been assigned to cover the DTM for the season. I will also be covering British F3 and any other UK series' which are not being picked up by the current editorial team, and which deserve a mention. I have submitted a 2010 DTM season preview, which should go online this afternoon, which I will also post on this blog (unless I am asked not to). The first small step.
I am on twitter: @ifitsgot4wheels and @daimccann and can now be read as a regular contributor on thecheckeredflag.co.uk

Christian’s autograph book: Part 2

Regular readers of the blog will know that we visited Oulton Park for the weekend’s opening rounds of the British F3 and British GT championships, avid readers (play along!) will know that I had promised an update on Christian’s not exactly bulging collection of motorsport autographs, hold on tight, this is it. Autographs 1-7 can be found in earlier, Part 1 post.

Oulton Park April 3rd-5th 2010
8. Alex Brundle, British F3. (Had come to watch a support race with the crowd at Old Hall in his overalls and seemed very nice. Will have to learn not to be so approachable if he reaches F1)
9. James Cole, 2009 Formula Ford Champion, British F3. (Had wandered out with team mate Brundle wearing some very dodgy shades)
10. Rupert Svendson-Cook, British F3. (Winner of Race 2)
11. Oli Webb, British F3. (2nd place to Vergne in Race 1 & 3)
12. Richard Dean, British GT (Signed a nice A3 poster of his United Autosports Audi that the team were giving away – the poster not the Audi)

Not a great haul, but from the five F3 drivers that were sent to face the fans, Christian already had three of their autographs, what are the chances of that, he only had nine in total at that point.
Next update will be after the FIA GT1 World Championship round at Silverstone in three weeks; Christian is hoping to get Romain Grosjean??

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2010 British GT Championship Preview

I visited Oulton Park last Easter for the opening round of the British GT championship, and although suitably impressed, it was a little disappointing to see just 13 entries spanning both classes. The Rollcentre Mosler dominated proceedings, before it was later disqualified from the championship as an ineligible entry. We watched Astons, Ferraris and a Viper battling against the Jones brothers Ascari, which would go on to take overall GT3 honours at the final round at Brands Hatch, and a clutch of Ginetta G50s battling for the GT4 class win, but it could not quite compensate for the depleted grid. In fairness, the recession was at its deepest and these machines don’t come cheap, although this may make the fact that this year’s entry list is bustling with new names even more remarkable, as most of the 2010 entrants will have been putting their budgets together for this campaign against the same, bleak economic backdrop. What then, are the factors attributable to the rise in numbers, with some 23 cars showing on the provisional entry list which was released by promoter SRO last week?
There has been a tweaking of the classes, leading to more cars being eligible to compete in GT3; due to the fact homologated models of superseded FIA GT3 spec cars are now permitted. GT4, whose 2009 winner Jody Firth has not yet committed to a 2010 programme, will now incorporate the Supersport cars from last term. 2010 also marks the return of the Cup class, where amateur drivers get the chance to participate in the UK’s top GT series in either a Carrera Cup spec Porsche 911, or a Ferrari Challenge standard 430. Only two Cup class entries appear on the provisional list, including Carrera Cup GB star Glynn Geddie, however expect greater fluctuation of the numbers in this category due to teams and drivers dovetailing programmes with other series’.
SRO has also concentrated this season on attempting to avoid any clashes with other top series, something which has hindered its turnout in previous campaigns, and a comprehensive, delayed highlights package will be shown on Channel 4 and Motors TV in the UK, making sponsorship a more attractive proposition.
Last seasons front runners will all be chasing glory in the GT3 class, alongside champions Team Preci-Spark, the Viper of Aaron Scott and Craig Wilkins will again be near the front, as will the eye catching US entered United Autosports Audi R8’s, which are entered into a part programme, including the season opener in Cheshire this weekend. Leading the GT3 Ferrari charge will be the Rosso Verde entry, again teaming up Hector Lester with Danish GT stalwart Allan Simonsen, MTECH’s Duncan Cameron and Matt Griffin, and Chad Racing, whose three car 430 squad features some of the most competitive driver line ups that the series has ever seen, while the Barwell-Cadena entered Aston Martin DBRS9 will expect to be in the mix.
Nine confirmed entries in the GT4 class will include a two car works Ginetta Cars squad, whose drivers are as yet unconfirmed, along with another five G50’s, whose drivers include G50 Cup graduates, 2009 champion Nathan Freke, and regular front-runner Christian Dick. The category will also feature a KTM X-Bow and a Lotus 2-Eleven.
So lets look forward to Oulton and the prospect of a good grid, there is no sight, or sound, in British motorsport quite like that of a good field of supercars roaring around one of the UK’s top venues. The fans and drivers will be hoping for a dry one, however, so there is no repeat of the carnage that wiped out half the field in the 2006 rain soaked meeting. A dry weekend is probably too big an ask, you can’t have it all.
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