In an interview with DTM.com this morning, ITR e.v chairman Hans Werner Aufrecht announced a change towards what official tyre supplier Hankook will be supplying next season, which sees the departure of the Option tyres after two years.
He explained that having two compounds in the series, which happened at the beginning of the 2013 season, has not provided “the additional excitement to the races that we wanted.” The decision to make this change has been under general consensus by all concerned.
“This season, there were basically two halves of the races that admittedly were clearer than last year, but it is not perfect yet,” stated Aufrecht, who wants to engage the television viewers by enforcing a single tyre compound for the next two seasons.
The association with Hankook began as the DTM switched from Dunlop at the beginning of the 2011 season, which has seen no structural failures over the last 39 races. He also expressed that fact that there are many discussions that will take place over the coming weeks between the various bodies that make up those involved in the DTM, so as to make strides forward towards improving the racing itself.
“We should again make our efforts on the demands that the fans have made. We’ve received many letters, e-mails and messages on social networks, which shows one thing in particular: the racing must be decided behind the wheel, rather than behind a television screen and table,” he said. “I can only ask for people to be patient, as all the changes to the regulations and the sporting format have to be carefully considered. No decisions have been made, as we haven’t discussed the proposals, especially when there are those that are releasing calendars and race formats. Behind the scenes, we want to put the messages sent to us into action.”
The coming weeks will see more further details come to light about how the DTM will evolve, but for not, the waiting game fasts approaches as to what changes will come to light, depending on the fans’ input to what they want to see in the future.
