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 initially/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 phases, 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 aggravated, however that is how it’s now,” Bjorn Lellmann, Head of BMW M Buyer Racing, defined.
“We should additionally not neglect that Sheldon van der Linde got here fourth and Rene Rast got here seventh. Accordingly, we scored essential factors. As we at all times 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 group merely did not put sufficient gas in his automotive to make it to the end.
“When you have misfires and too little gas stress and the engine stalls, then it may very well be [that there was too little fuel in the tank],” stated Wittmann.
“Nevertheless it may be the pump, it may very well be the [fuel] line. Now we 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 high groups within the DTM and is now BMW’s solely consultant on the 2024 grid following the demise of Challenge 1.
Requested to elucidate the issue, group chief Torsten Schubert instructed German broadcaster Ran: “Now we have to see whether or not a pump has failed or whether or not it was a mistake by the group. I am unable to clarify it for the time being.
“The quantity of petrol was predetermined, as was the case with the others, and we additionally had a security automotive part. So it may hardly have been too little.
“If we have now made a mistake, then I can perceive that, then that’s our difficulty. However I do not assume we made a mistake. I hope that the expertise one way or the other obtained in the best way.
“In any other case, if we made the error, then we have now to reply for it and that might be the largest disappointment I’ve at the moment.
“Now we have to take accountability for that and see how we cope with it. However first we have now to analyse whether or not we made the error or whether or not one thing else went improper.”
Wittmann has been going by way of a tough patch within the DTM in the previous few years, largely because of his earlier groups not having the sources 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 group, 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 initially/end.
“We nonetheless need to see what the issue was. However to let victory slip out of your grasp a number of laps earlier than the top, that is annoying. I am completely disillusioned. It is brutal for the group.”