Schubert-BMW at the top of the tire game

(Motorsport-Total.com) – Friday practice at the season opener in Oschersleben – and the poker of the DTM season has already begun: Because in two sessions of 45 minutes where Schubert-BMW Champion Sheldon van der Linde was on 1 : 21,960 they set the best time of the day and with temperatures around 20 degrees, some teams deliberately used only one of two sets of new tyres.

Rene Rast at the limit: The new BMW guest guarantees a one-two for Schubert

Revolution: The second new set of tires can be used on Friday in one of the next weekends, because after the start there is only one new set of tires on Friday – and on some tracks there are no opportunities for tests or tests on Thursday as such. in Oschersleben, where there is much in the run-up has been tested.

One team that has actually used both sets of new tires in the free practice sessions is the BMW champion team Schubert from Oschersleben. Because van der Linde and his new teammate Rene Rast drove twice the fastest car of the day in the second session (result FT2) in the M4 GT3.

Schubert-BMW drivers use both sets of tires

The Italian also used a new set in the second session, because the Attempto team, which had already been accepted by ADAC, only received their DTM cars late, which meant that no test drives could be completed at all.

Surprisingly, the best Lamborghini driver was Grasser rookie Mick Wishofer (+0.172) in fourth, the best Porsche man was Toksport WRT driver Christian Engelhart (+0.353) in seventh and the fastest Ferrari driver was Jack Aitken (+0.355) in eighth place. place.

Tire savings at Mercedes-AMG, second half without Auer

On paper, the Mercedes-AMG GT3 was the slowest car: Winward driver David Schumacher (+0.452) was tenth in the daily classification. He already set the top AMG time in the first practice session (result FT1), which shows that the star brand’s teams did not use a second set of tires in the second practice session.

Photo gallery: DTM 2023: This is a rule change

Lucas Auer did the same, but not quite willingly: the Austrian Winward driver, who finished third directly behind teammate Schumacher in the first practice session, did not complete a single lap in the second session. “We had a problem with the radio that we wanted to fix first,” says team boss Christian Hohe Nadel when asked by Motorsport-Total.com. “It will be a problem if that doesn’t work tomorrow.”

The two HRT drivers were far behind: Arjun Maini was 0.731 seconds behind in 19th, setting the team’s top time, Luca Stolz in 25th was even 0.960 seconds off van der Linde’s best time. As reported by ‘Motorsport-Total.com’ the day before, Stolz’s crash during Thursday’s test hit the HRT team in particular.

HRT’s problems continue after Thursday’s accident

Because the squad was one of the few teams that didn’t do a private test at Oschersleben and didn’t enjoy the four new sets of tires on Stolz’s car. “We had to change the engine because it was really damaged,” says HRT team boss Ulrich Fritz in an interview with ‘Motorsport-Total.com’. “The mechanics worked until four o’clock.”

Photo: DTM: Breakfast of the season in Oschersleben 2023, Friday

But the crash still had an impact on Friday. “That’s the stupidest thing that could have happened to us,” Fritz says angrily. “Because while others may use new tires for the setup, we had to do some performance testing with the car.” In the second practice session, Stolz was only 0.240 seconds faster than in the first session. It will be interesting to see if the squad can keep pace.

Why was Engelhart so fast last week?

What are the moments worth? The fact that Toksport WRT Porsche driver Engelhart even ran a 1:21.603 in a test a week ago in Oschersleben shows that it could be faster. At that time, however, it was cooler, which improves engine performance.

In addition, the Balance of Performance had not yet been published at the time, which may have resulted in the new Porsche 911 GT3 R not using the same settings as other teams.

However, a bluff cannot be completely ruled out, as the balance of performance can still be changed in the first two weekends until Saturday evening. Things will finally get serious on Saturday: The first qualifier starts at 9:45 am and the first race of the season at 1:30 pm (all details on the schedule, TV, streaming, etc.).