DTM 2015

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Not my cup of cake
Valued Member
I finally managed to find a DTM race on UK TV at the weekend. BT Sport showed the sprint race at the Lausitzring live and has the main raceis on tonight as, presumably, the World Cross Dressing Championship (or something equally pointless) was on and this was more important.

A few changes in the regs for this season. There is a standard tyre, no primes or options (Hooray!) and the teams are given a number of sets of wet and dry tyres at the beginning of each weekend and can use them as they please. They have introduced DRS (Boo!), although I'm not sure how effective it is on a DTM car with relatively small wings on the rear. Qualifying is now a single 20 minute session before each race (sprint and feature) rather than the 3 round knock out system previously used (as in F1). Pole is the driver who sets the fastest time in the session - well no shit Sherlock. Drivers now have one number for the whole season. I have to admit to not knowing that they could change their numbers and as the cars are covered in so many decals I can't really see them anyway.

In round One at Hockenheim Jamie Green won the sprint race and Mattias Ekstrom the feature, in pretty soggy conditions.

Audi are looking like the class of the field this season, it remains to be seen if the ballast regs start to peg back their advantage. Jamie Green won the sprint, in fact it was an Audi 1-2-3-4 so if you are a Merc or BMW fan it's probably best to turn over and watch BMW Supercup (if that even exists) . I haven't seen the feature race yet and I'm trying not to see the result before watching it. The sprint race didn't have masses of overtaking but there was enough to satisfy someone like me who has been watching F1 for so many years. Once Jamie Green had managed to force his way past Miguel Molina he was off in to the distance at quite a rate of knots.

One thing of note, one car had to retire as, according to the team, the front splitter was damaged. These cars appear to be even more fragile than F1 cars. Given the narrow circuits and crash, boom, bang nature of DTM I was surprised only one car retired from the sprint race.
 
If Audi is such a dominant force, even with ballast; Merc and BMW may as well pack their bags and go somewhere else (Merc already doing it but BMW? F1 would receive them back with open arms)
 
Race 2 watched. Brilliant second win by Jamie Green, made more exciting by a late safety car. Audi 1-2-3-4-5!
 
I've missed a few races in this series but it appears the weight penalties applied in DTM are working as Audi aren't as dominate as they were in the earlier races I watched. Some 12 year old boy won the first race for Merc although Audi were back on top in the second race.
 
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