Marco Wittmann: “The tyre issues are the same for all of us”

BMW Motorsport Team RMG driver Marco Wittmann didn’t have the start of the 2020 DTM season he had hoped for, qualifying in eighth place on the grid but finishing out of the points due to tyre degradation issues.

The Team RMG driver had a promising start of the race, climbing slowly up to fifth place. After his obligatory tyre change, Wittmann’s pace dwindled.

“My first stint was very good, I had very good place,” the 30-year-old said. “But the second was quite the opposite. I had different tyres and they degraded much more than the first set.

“We use either new, used or scraped tyres, for instance, with rubbish scrapped after the free practice. The tyres for the second stint were scraped tyres. Both Timo (Glock) and I had the same strategy and we suffered the most with degradation.”

Tyre degradation was an issue for many drivers on Saturday at Spa-Francorchamps. Wittmann dismissed receiving any alternative solutions from series’ tyre partner Hankook.

“We normally run on a 1.3-bar tyre pressure, which was increased to 1.5-bar for Spa due to safety issues,” Wittmann told TouringCarTimes. “This was to accommodate the tyre deformation at Spa’s high-speed corners, especially the Eau Rouge.

“I don’t think we need an additional adjustment from Hankook, because the situation is the same for all of us, we all run under the same conditions and we have to make the best of them,” concluded Wittmann.

The weather forecast for Sunday at Spa-Francorchamps is much cooler than Saturday’s conditions, with air temperatures around six degrees lower.