Wittmann was main Saturday’s opening race of 2024 when his Schubert Motorsport-entered BMW M4 GT3 abruptly started to decelerate with 4 laps to go, earlier than coming to a halt at first/end straight.
The 2-time DTM champion had tactically made his pitstop moments earlier than the Full Course Yellow was deployed to help the restoration of Ben Dorr’s stranded McLaren, which allowed him to leap from exterior the highest 10 into the lead of the race.
Within the closing levels, the German was efficiently preserving the Emil Frey Ferrari of Jack Aitken at bay, however was cruelly denied a primary DTM win because the 2022 finale at Hockenheim when his BMW quickly misplaced energy within the run-up to the chicane.
“We analysed the scenario and decided that it was a mistake when refueling. We’re in fact very irritated, however that is how it’s now,” Bjorn Lellmann, Head of BMW M Buyer Racing, defined.
“We should additionally not overlook that Sheldon van der Linde got here fourth and Rene Rast got here seventh. Accordingly, we scored vital factors. As we all the time say: we win collectively and lose collectively.”
The BMW stopped on observe as a result of no extra petrol was flowing contained in the combustion chamber. There are two potentialities that led to this situation: both there was a technical failure/leak someplace or the workforce merely did not put sufficient gasoline in his automobile to make it to the end.
“You probably have misfires and too little gasoline strain and the engine stalls, then it may very well be [that there was too little fuel in the tank],” stated Wittmann.
“Nevertheless it is also the pump, it may very well be the [fuel] line. We now have to analyse that. In any case, it was decisive for the race, which is in fact bitter.”
Schubert Motorsport is without doubt one of the prime groups within the DTM and is now BMW’s solely consultant on the 2024 grid following the demise of Undertaking 1.
Requested to elucidate the issue, workforce chief Torsten Schubert instructed German broadcaster Ran: “We now have to see whether or not a pump has failed or whether or not it was a mistake by the workforce. I can not clarify it in the mean time.
“The quantity of petrol was predetermined, as was the case with the others, and we additionally had a security automobile part. So it might hardly have been too little.
“If we’ve made a mistake, then I can perceive that, then that’s our concern. However I do not suppose we made a mistake. I hope that the expertise in some way obtained in the best way.
“In any other case, if we made the error, then we’ve to reply for it and that will be the largest disappointment I’ve immediately.
“We now have to take accountability for that and see how we take care of it. However first we’ve to analyse whether or not we made the error or whether or not one thing else went unsuitable.”
Wittmann has been going by a tough patch within the DTM in the previous couple of years, largely as a result of his earlier groups not having the assets to finish as a lot testing as its rivals.
This 12 months, BMW positioned the 18-time race winner in an expanded three-car Schubert workforce, giving him full parity with fellow manufacturing unit drivers Rast and van der Linde.
Wittmann appeared visibly livid after returning to the paddock following his DNF, however had regained his composure by the point he spoke to the media.
“That is a shitty feeling,” he stated. “We had misfires, so I misplaced two or three positions at first. Then the vehicles got here from behind within the final sector and I rolled out at first/end.
“We nonetheless need to see what the issue was. However to let victory slip out of your grasp just a few laps earlier than the top, that is annoying. I am completely dissatisfied. It is brutal for the workforce.”