The scenery was a little familiar.

Marco Wittmann celebrated on the podium in Zolder on Sunday.

The BMW driver, two-time DTM champion, was delighted with his 16th victory.

Maximilian Götz from Mercedes came in second.

Both drivers and brands are part of the inventory of the touring car series, albeit with interruptions.

Third, Liam Lawson, the Ferrari driver, said hello.

Yes, the Italian sports car manufacturer is part of the racing circle formed by the German manufacturers Audi, BMW and Mercedes. And not only Ferrari, Lamborghini is also new to the series. McLaren made a one-time guest appearance on the old school course in Belgium. At least this season.

After Audi and BMW left the factory, the DTM had to make a complete restart this season.

The concept with the prototypes according to class one regulations had failed.

Despite many identical parts, the use of a vehicle cost between four and five million euros.

Too much of.

In order to keep the DTM platform alive, series director Gerhard Berger decided to use GT3 vehicles.

Because there are countless racing series for these types around the world, almost every automobile manufacturer has corresponding models on offer.

That is why the costs are limited at around one million euros.

Customer sport again

Instead of a works sport, the DTM is again a customer sport. Like in 1984 when the series started in Zolder. And Berger has also participated as a racing driver once or twice. The former Formula 1 driver is delighted that the field in the 2021 season is astonishingly large with 17 racing drivers and two female racing drivers. He also says it's amazingly good. Because in addition to the established DTM drivers such as the two-time championship runner-up Nico Müller (Switzerland / Audi) or Timo Glock (Wersau / BMW), there are GT3 specialists such as the brothers Kelvin and Sheldon van der Linde (South Africa), who jointly run second in the ADAC GT in 2018 -Masters had become.

In order to be able to better market his championship in the sea of ​​the many GT series, Berger looked for unique selling points before the start. As a former racing driver, the Austrian had in mind that the drive in a DTM car should be spectacular and equal to a “ride on the razor blade”. Standing start, no ABS, no traction control - that was Berger's plans. Because he knew that the GT3 cars were easier to drive because they were designed more for ambitious amateurs than for professionals. But the automobile manufacturers thwarted this vision. "Those were dreams," admits Berger, "the time is currently critical for manufacturers, the budgets that are available are used for electrification."

Last season, René Rast needed 1: 18.143 minutes for the 3.977-kilometer lap, while Marco Wittmann was significantly slower in 1: 26.687 minutes at the weekend. But these number games are secondary, the entertainment that is offered on the racetrack is decisive. And that is definitely in need of improvement. The two races in Zolder only achieved position gains at the start; there were almost no overtaking maneuvers during the race. The two races were only tense in the situations in which gaps were closed.

Another challenge, on the other hand, can be regarded as successful.

The vehicles had to be adapted because they have completely different technical conditions.

The ten-cylinder engine of the Audi R8 sits directly behind the driver in front of the rear axle, the BMW M6 has a six-cylinder bi-turbo unit, and in the Mercedes GT3, the power of the V8 engine is sent to the gearbox on the rear axle.

"Balance of Performance"

This is done via a “Balance of Performance” (BoP), in which the various vehicles are adjusted using weights and adjustments to the engines.

On the basis of the technical data of the racing cars as well as the data from the training sessions and races, software calculated the BoP.

And apart from a few corrections, this succeeded to the satisfaction of all those involved.

But in the end it is still the person behind the wheel who decides. Kelvin van der Linde seems to be the best at the moment. The 25-year-old South African won two of the six races and leads the table with 101 points. Second is Liam Lawson, 21 points behind. This means that two completely new faces will rule the DTM 2021.