DTM concludes its pre-season testing
The DTM has completed its four-day test programme aimed at providing the teams and the drivers with the chance of getting themselves ready for the season-oepning weekend.
The DTM has returned to on-track activities this week after it had been forced to delay the start of the 2020 season. The pre-season test had been originally planned to take place at Monza, but the coronavirus pandemic made it impossible to host the on-track preparation.
The German Tourenwagen Masters have earlier released its all-new 2020 calendar with confirming that the pre-season test would finally take place at Nürburgring. The series has implemented a package of measures in order to guarantee the health and safety of each participant.
„A detailed and precise infection protection plan allowed for the test days to be held amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. In the implementation of the measures, such as distancing, use of protection and regular temperature checks, all the organisations involved perfectly worked together,” said the statement.
On the fourth and final day of testing, reigning champion Rene Rast set the pace with his Audi R5 DTM. After driving on two days, the two-time DTM champion has revealed that the test session was important to get up to speed after such a long time away from the race tracks.
“I drove on Monday and Thursday. In between, I had media activities and analysed the work by my teammates. On the final day, it was also about implementing what we had learned.”
Habsburg with track record
WRT Team Audi driver Ferdinand Habsburg emerged as the fastest driver of the test days and was faster than the current DTM lap record: his time of 1m 18.911s is the best lap time ever achieved by a DTM car at the sprint circuit. In general, Audi and BMW turned out to be on a par.
Over the four days, the Audi works teams notched up a total of 1,964 laps while the BMW works outfits logged in 1,737 laps in total. Of the drivers, Mike Rockenfeller stood out with his total of 569 laps, equivalent to 2,061.901kms.
DTM newcomer Robert Kubica grabbed the second spot when it came to the most diligent drivers. The fact that the Polish driver was ranked among the most prolific drivers was supported by a sporting rule. While the works teams only were allowed to run one car at the time during testing, the two privateer teams WRT and ART had permission to run a maximum of two cars. For Kubica, this meant that he was allowed unlimited running on all four test days.
The one-time F1 race winner has revealed that he needed some time to familiarise himself with the complex DTM machines.
“Of course, after a challenging time, not only for racing drivers and teams, but for everybody during the lockdown, it is nice to be able to drive a race car again. Everybody showed a lot of consideration for the others. After all, health is the most important thing. For me as a newcomer, there were many new things to discover, with the car, the procedures, the team.”
