There’s a laborious cap on the quantity of personal testing allowed within the DTM this 12 months, with groups not permitted to freely run their GT3 automobiles exterior of race weekends from the start of this month.
Though the precise particulars concerning the restrictions imposed by the ADAC haven’t been made public, Autosport understands that every crew will probably be allowed 5 days of testing per driver. Sanctions for any violations are but to be decided.
Till final 12 months, the DTM’s prime outfits had been spending as a lot as a 3rd of their finances on non-public testing, with a few of them operating their automobile on each monitor on the calendar besides the Norisring avenue circuit.
Double champion Wittmann, whose earlier groups Venture 1 and Walkenhorst might solely full a restricted variety of check days resulting from finances constraints, feels it was essential for the ADAC to maintain the price of operating a DTM programme in verify because the collection enters its fourth season of GT3 rules.
“I feel it is a good plan,” the German advised Autosport. “I do not know the complete final result but and what’s behind it, however usually it is a good subject as a result of we nonetheless have buyer racing, it is not pushed by the manufacturing facility groups or by the producers.
“You might want to cut back the testing as a result of at one stage we’ll face the issue that each one the groups will step out of the DTM as a result of the prices will explode to the moon.
“It is a good subject to handle, and if we are able to discover a approach to have a good window with some check days however restricted to the quantity of checks they run, it might assist quite a bit.
“It might assist the championship, it might assist the groups and it’ll cut back the prices.”
BMW dream crew
Wittmann will transfer throughout from the now-defunct Venture 1 crew to Schubert Motorsport in 2024, forming an all-star line-up alongside fellow champions Rene Rast and Sheldon van der Linde.
It follows calls from Wittmann to be given the identical instruments as different manufacturing facility drivers Rast and van der Linde, having felt he couldn’t compete on the entrance with the underfunded Venture 1 outfit final 12 months.
The 34-year-old feels having three top-line drivers in a single factory-supported crew will push BMW ahead this 12 months because it goals to wrestle again the crown in 2024.
Marco Wittmann, Sheldon van der Linde, René Rast, Schubert Motorsport
Photograph by: BMW AG
“It is good to be within the DTM once more,” he stated. “The final two years weren’t very straightforward for me. Now we now have the identical circumstances, I would like to totally push.
“Now we have a powerful line-up. We convey a number of expertise to the crew. We will additionally assist the crew to go ahead, perhaps to enhance the set-up work, or we are able to even share set-up work and so forth in testing or whenever you put together for the race weekends.”
Wittmann recorded his worst-ever DTM marketing campaign in 2023, failing to muster a podium all season and ending up a distant thirteenth within the championship with simply 91 factors on the board.
It was a far cry from the sort of outcomes he used to attain within the Class 1 days of the DTM, when he led BMW’s full-factory assault on the collection with varied iterations of the M4.
Requested if he might now replicate the shape he loved in the course of the golden, manufacturer-heavy period of the collection, he stated: “I hope so! I hope so. That is all the time the purpose.
“The final two years had been troublesome so I did not actually have expectations on this. Now clearly the purpose is to go, undoubtedly to make once more a step ahead in comparison with the final two years, after which we see.
“Clearly nonetheless attempting to find wins and for podiums. My want is to repeat the success from the Class 1 occasions, so I’ll give my finest.”