Season final at Hockenheim – The dawn of a new era

The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters heads to Hockenheim this weekend for the final race of the season and the final race for the current regulations. 2012 marks the start of a new era for DTM with new cars and the return of BMW.

BMW will show their 2012 racer in public for the first time at Hockenheim this weekend with Dirk Werner behind the wheel.
“Although we are currently very occupied with the ongoing testing, we did not want to pass up the opportunity to offer DTM fans a taste of what is to come in the new season. We could not imagine a more appropriate venue than Hockenheim. This is also the racetrack, at which we will contest our first race next year, 20 years after we last entered a works team in the DTM,” said BMW Motorsport Director Jens Marquardt.

While the title was decided ahead of the final, with Martin Tomczyk clinching his first ever, the fight is on for the runner-up position in the championship.

Audi driver Mattias Ekström has caught Bruno Spengler and is only two points behind after an amazing last couple of races with three victories and one second place.
“It’s always nice to travel to Hockenheim. It will conclude the season. This time I’m arriving there completely relaxed and will try to deliver a solid performance. I want to clinch another good result before we can look forward to the winter break and the tests with the new A5 DTM.

Mercedes man Spengler has lost a lot of ground with only four points scored in the last four races. But looking back at the last time DTM visited Hockenheim, in the season opener, Spengler was on his own to score his first of so far two victories this year.
Unfortunately, the title race was decided early in Valencia, but even so, “The Hockenheimring is one of my favourite tracks, and the season opener in May went really well for us – it was the second win in my career at the circuit. This course is technically very demanding and you need good brakes and impressive top speed. As this is the last race for the DTM AMG Mercedes C-Class, we’re aiming to send our fans home happy with a victory and to win the team championship,” said Spengler

The team championship is a close fight between Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline and Thomas Sabo / Mercedes-Benz Bank AMG. The Audi team heads the standings on 77 points, five points more than the Mercedes team.
“Hockenheim is the home race for Mercedes-Benz and, just like every year, thousands of our colleagues and the many fans of our company will be there to cheer us on. In the past, their support has obviously given us a real boost: since 2000, when the DTM was revived, Mercedes-Benz won 18 out of 25 races staged at Hockenheim, which is a win rate of over 70 percent. We want to finish our season on a high in this year’s finale, so we’ll have a number of surprises on and off the track, especially for the spectators in the Mercedes grandstand,” said Norbert Haug, Vice-President of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport.

All three manufacturers are deep in to the testing schedule of the 2012 cars with BMW running the 3-series M3, Mercedes running the C-Coupé and Audi the new A5.
“There are many who are still viewing the event as a chance to present themselves for the 2012 season by winning this season’s finale. I do think though that it’ll be difficult there to keep Mattias Ekström in his current form from being in contention for victory again. This means that the outcome is completely open and it’s definitely well worth for the fans to travel to the DTM finale – not least because they’ll be able to see the new DTM cars 2012 there in action on a race track for the first time,” said head of Audi Motorsport, Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich.