Adrien Tambay’s second season in the DTM has seen the French driver makes significant inroads into increasing his spell of results since teaming up with two-time champion Timo Scheider at Audi Sport Team Abt from the beginning of last year.
With a run of four successive points finishes leading to the season finale at Hockenheim, where he finished fourteenth, Tambay recently spoke to theCheckeredFlag.co.uk about his thoughts on the recent comments by ITR Chairman Hans Werner Aufrecht about grip levels in the DTM, as well as his thoughts on the 2013 season.
“First of all I think everyone agrees that we have seen an exciting season with a lot of overtaking. One main reason for that is the option tyre, which gives us a lot more options in terms of strategy,” said the 22-year-old, when asked about what Hankook may have to do in response to the changes in grip that may be required for 2014. “I know that the Hankook guys are smart and that they are in talks with the DTM how to improve even more. As you see: A lot of people come up with good ideas now.”
Since the new “DTM-Era” began at the beginning of last year, the rules were frozen to ensure closer racing at times, which has clearly been the case this year, Adrien said that for a driver “to be in front you have to get it one hundred percent right, which no one managed to do this year.”
“Once you start from the middle of the field, you are quickly in trouble and don’t get a proper race result. I know from last year that I have the speed, and now the main target for 2014 is to get consistency in both qualifying and races throughout the season.”
With only tenths of a second splitting the majority of the field, it has been difficult for everyone, irrespective of how long they have been racing in the DTM. Adrien is nevertheless showing an increased turn of performance, even though his “Iron Man” livery both on the car and his special Racesuit for the first couple of rounds in 2013 didn’t bring him the best of luck at the beginning of the year. The future is still looking bright for this Audi driver going into a further upward turn of fortune next year…
