BMW Motorsport remains true to the original formula it employed for the 2012 ‘comeback’ year, where it made a clean sweep of all three titles at the last round in Hockenheim.
Team Schnitzer, who were DTM team champions, stick with their current driver line-up of defending champion Bruno Spengler and Dirk Werner, with Joey Hand and Andy Priaulx changing places for this year at Team RBM and RMG. This leaves Augusto Farfus and Martin Tomczyk staying put, but welcome new teammates for the upcoming year.
New additions Timo Glock, looking forward to his new challenge in the DTM, and 2012 test driver Marco Wittmann will be forming Team MTEK’s new pairing, as both will be getting to grips with the M3 DTM in a racing capacity, and will need to take time getting used to the way DTM works, in comparison with driving a single seater, as changes don’t just happen overnight.
Motorsport Director, Jens Marquardt explains the reasoning behind the changes and strategy for BMW’s challenge this year: “As far as our other three teams are concerned, we saw no need to make dramatic changes to the tried-and-tested structures. However, we did want to set a few new courses for the 2013 season, in order to get the most out of the strengths of our drivers and teams. This is the thinking behind Andy and Joey swapping teams. The allocation of our drivers for the 2013 season allows both the drivers and the teams to take the overall package at BMW Motorsport to the next level by exchanging experiences and ideas. Everyone in our team is highly motivated to succeed as we face the new challenge of lining up in the DTM as defending champions.”
The testing stages get even more intense as the weeks count down towards racing Hockenheim for the first of ten races, as Munich bears no let up in its preparation for some hard tin-top racing for 2013. Newly announced 2013 DTM test and development driver, Belgium’s Maxime Martin, will be joining the eight-strong squad for their joint fitness week that will take place in Viareggio, Italy at the beginning of March.
The “Ultimate Driving Machine” continues to build towards a hopeful successful defense of their DTM titles, with all efforts aboard…
