Bruno Spengler expects a close fight for the 2019 DTM title

BMW Motorsport Team RMG driver Bruno Spengler was able to finish both races at Hockenheim in the points and believes the 2019 DTM season will be very close.

“It’s just the first race, so it’s difficult to say what will happen for the rest of the year, but we can see that we are all very close together,” said Spengler to TouringCarTimes.

“Depending on the conditions our opponents or us were a bit stronger, so now it’s going to be up to us to maximise the package we have and see race by race. There are many different tracks this season and we’ll see how it develops.”

BMW had a better season opening weekend than expected, following pre-season technical issues, dominating both qualifying sessions and the race on Saturday under difficult conditions.

“I think all in all it’s very positive, after all in all we didn’t know where we were after the winter testing,” Spengler said. “It’s a new concept, a new car, and I have to say that we didn’t have a lot of problems. The car run smoothly and there were no issues, the Team RMG guys did an amazing job and, on the performance side, I think we did very well, especially in the rain.”

“Unfortunately on Saturday the qualifying didn’t go well, for some reason the grip wasn’t building in the tyres, but we had a good car in the race to finish seventh. Things were different on Sunday, I had a really good car, started from P5 and my car behaved really well.

“Let’s say that we have a car a little bit more aggressive on the tyres than our opponents, and this is why they are very fast over the distance and we saw a very clever strategy from René Rast (Audi) with two stops and that’s why they were quicker over the race distance,” added Spengler.

Spengler faces his 15th season in the DTM, having experienced different cars and regulations. After his first weekend competing with the new Class One cars, the Team RMG driver is excited.

“The new cars are fun to drive, because they are a lot faster and, when I saw the times in the qualifying in the 1:29s that was fun, reaching 290 km/h in the straight with 600 bhp, the DRS and the push-to-pass is great, so I like the new cars,” said Spengler.

“They are very special to drive because of the turbo behaviour, so there are a couple of things you have to do differently, but they are good cars to drive and I think they are a great step forward for the DTM and the championship.”