Dani Juncadella: Ekström clash “one of the biggest disappointments of my career”

RSC Mücke Mercedes’ Dani Juncadella has described his clash with Audi’s Mattias Ekström in the 2013 DTM season finale at Hockenheim as “one of the biggest disappointments” of his career.

Juncadella, who moved from Euro F3 to the DTM in 2013, was having his strongest run of the season so far, after having made his way up from 17th on the grid to third at a wet Hockenheim.

However, the young Spaniard’s impressive race was undone after he lost the car under braking and tagged second place Ekström going into the hairpin on lap 27.

The contact saw Ekström’s car spun 360-degrees, and Juncadella was given a drive-through penalty for the racing incident.

The time lost following the penalty saw Juncadella eventually finish down in 10th on an afternoon where he felt he had a genuine chance to take his first DTM career win.

“I have to say that it was one of the biggest disappointments in my career,” Juncadella told TouringCarTimes. “When you get this chance to get everything right; the strategy, the balance of the car and you’re the quickest guy on the track, it’s just such a shame.

“Today the maximum was the win and it was a real chance; it was something realistic.

“I’ve never been a really quick guy in the rain, so I’ve been never one of those guys who you could say “oh, this guy, he’s the one you need to look out for in the rain”

“I’ve never won a wet race in my career, so that’s something missing, and today is a shame because I think we got everything right.”

Juncadella added he was also faced with a lack of information from the Mercedes pit-wall; something which led to him to believe his actual position was ninth or 10th at the time of the collision, as opposed to correct position of third behind then-leaders, Glock and Ekström.

“The problem started because I wasn’t getting any info from the pitwall at any point telling me that we were in that actual positon.

“I knew we were third, but I thought the guys in front of us had made a pitstop, so I thought maybe I was actually fighting for ninth or 10th.

“I was getting told “you’re the quickest guy on track, keep this pace”, so then I tried to lose as little time as possible and as soon as I caught Eki [Ekström], I lost the car under braking and that’s for sure my mistake.

“However, when I came into the pit and did my first pit-stop, I was right behind Bruno [Spengler] and it was then I realized we were in a position to win.

“Everything is positive about this weekend, apart from those 40 seconds where the team didn’t inform me what was happening and I did that move.”