Autosport Top 50 of 2024: #38 Kelvin van der Linde

In his last 12 months racing an Audi, Kelvin van der Linde put collectively a superb DTM marketing campaign however got here up quick to Mirko Bortolotti after main into the ultimate race.

No person managed greater than his three victories, a virtuoso efficiency to win by 15.2s at a sodden Nurburgring the 12 months’s most dominant margin.

The jovial South African additionally impressed his Abt workforce within the curtailed Nurburgring 24 Hours aboard a Lamborghini and branched into the World Endurance Championship with a Lexus run by the French ASP workforce, although the bundle was not often aggressive. A Components E cameo for Abt in Berlin underlined his versatility.

Crew perspective 

The elder of two racing brothers, Kelvin van der Linde needed to watch as BMW driver Sheldon claimed the DTM title he’d dearly wished for himself in 2022. Then in 2023 he’d been outshone by team-mate Ricardo Feller, who completed 5 locations larger within the standings.  

As such there was no scarcity of motivation for van der Linde within the final 12 months of Abt’s lengthy partnership with Audi, before it switches to Lamborghini for the 2025 DTM, and the two-time Nurburgring 24 Hours winner channelled that dedication into his greatest DTM season but.

The spotlight reel wasn’t quick on choices.  

At Zandvoort, he handed Rene Rast and Thierry Vermuelen (across the outdoors) on the quick Flip 7 right-hand sweeper in a second that demonstrated lovely judgement. As did outduelling Lucas Auer to win the opener at Hockenheim.  

In difficult situations too, he was supreme. When the climate was at its worst, at the Lausitzring, and the Nurburgring, there was no stopping him.  

Abt Motorsport director Martin Tomczyk recollects that at this 12 months’s Nurburgring 24 Hours, his second look on the occasion in a Lambo, van der Linde was additionally “very, excellent within the moist situations” and pissed off that the race did not resume due to dense fog. He was satisfied that the selection of minimize clicks might propel the automobile he shared with works drivers Marco Mapelli and Jordan Pepper right into a race-winning place, though they finally needed to accept fifth in a deeply unsatisfying ending. 

“Kelvin was instantly after the primary half of the Nordschleife on the radio [as the field ran behind the safety car waiting for a window in the fog] saying ‘let this race occur as a result of I positively will win it’, he was so assured we had the correct tyre selection,” reveals Tomczyk.

“He knew that he is precisely underneath these situations very onerous to beat.” 

Tomczyk has loads of justification for his evaluation that “he’s from the viewpoint of an entire bundle driver, probably the greatest GT drivers on the market”. Beforehand a team-mate of Sheldon’s earlier than asserting his retirement from driving in 2021, Tomczyk has had loads of time to look at Kelvin van der Linde since he took up his function in March 2023.  

Talking earlier than van der Linde’s departure from Abt was announced earlier this week, forward of an anticipated swap to BMW, Tomczyk praised the 28-year-old for combining a number of essential traits that made him a well-liked member of the Abt workforce he joined in 2014 – instantly profitable the ADAC GT Masters title to earn an Audi manufacturing facility deal that only concluded in 2023. 

Had the N24 resumed, van der Linde believed he might have gained it -according to Tomczyk

Photograph by: Gruppe C GmbH

“There are three views you’ll be able to have a look at,” the 2011 DTM champion says when requested to elucidate van der Linde’s greatest attributes. “Kelvin is a race driver [who is] sitting within the automobile, understanding precisely what to do, when to do [it] and eager about what he is doing whereas driving. That is not regular for a race driver, that he thinks along with the engineer and with the technique guys and on the identical time acting on the observe.  

“The second level is to be open for all medias, pleasant to followers and fulfil each process with out dropping the principle give attention to the observe. And one of the essential I’d fee almost the identical is to inspire and push the workforce in a really constructive approach. These are the three advantages that he combines, and that is one thing that you just don’t see that usually in motorsports.” 

That there are a number of strings to van der Linde’s bow was underlined when Components E rolled into Berlin. With common driver Nico Muller amongst a number of drivers dominated out by the clashing Spa WEC spherical, Abt’s FE workforce reserve and sim driver took outing from his Lexus deal to deputise.

On his first FE begin since February 2023, when the Johannesburg native was dominated out of racing in Cape City by issues with the Mahindra-supplied suspension, van der Linde began and completed eleventh, then beat each works Mahindra drivers within the second race. No factors, however he’d made a degree. 

“At Berlin, you could possibly see that he can adapt tremendous fast,” provides Tomczyk. “There he proved that he simply can bounce in and carry out and work as properly with the workforce. He knew the workforce and he knew that he can depend on the engineers, depend on the mechanics, and that helps fairly massively when it comes to focus and for pure efficiency.” 

Van der Linde re-enters the highest 50 after inserting forty ninth in 2021

Photograph by: Alexander Trienitz