Bang effect in the DTM: Rene Rast officially announced on Friday of the season final in Hockenheim that he will not be in the DTM in 2026. The currently most successful driver with three titles, who is currently fighting for his fourth title, says goodbye to the traditional series for the time being! And 23 days before his 39th birthday.
Rast’s farewell from the DTM, which gave him his greatest success so far, does not mean the end of the career. The Mindener will continue to be part of the Hypercar program of BMW and will probably continue to start in the long-distance World Cup WEC and the 24 hours of Le Mans.
This is also confirmed by BMW Motor sports director Andreas Roos in an interview with Motorsport-Total.com. “We want to make sure that few drivers focus on our only work program,” he alludes to the prototype inserts.
“But that doesn’t mean that Rene is out of the DTM forever, but for 2026 we can say that he doesn’t drive a DTM. And then let’s see how we will continue for the future.”
Prototypes have priority in 2026
However, it is questionable whether Rast will return to the DTM after a year break, especially since he is already 40 years old. The fact that he now focuses on the prototypes makes sense, because when he switched from BMW to Audi at the end of 2022, Rast made it clear that he “had a few goals in motorsport” that he would like to realize. Therefore I have to say goodbye to the Audi fans after the end of the 2022 season.
The fact that he means an overall victory in Le Mans appears: Audi had just stopped the planned LMDH program in favor of Formula 1 at the time. At BMW, Rast has been part of the prototype drivers since 2024.
Rasts impressive DTM balance sheet
With Rast, the DTM loses its perhaps most famous pilot, who, above all, dominated his class 1 time as a regular pilot at the Audi team Rosberg from 2017 to 2020. This is also shown by the statistics: a total of 31 wins -24 of them in the manufacturer era until 2020 -59 podium places and 26 pole positions.
In the eternal list of the series with three titles in 2017, 2019 and 2020, he is in second place behind Bernd Schneider with five titles and ex Aquo with Klaus Ludwig.
In the number of victories, he is in third place behind Bernd Schneider (43 victories) and Klaus Ludwig (37). And in the qualifying best list, he displaced from the top this year in Zandvoort with his 26th DTM pole Bernd Schneider, who has 25 Poles on his account.
Overlooked for years, then DTM series winner
What was noteworthy with Rast’s career: After being overlooked by numerous young programs for years, he established himself with success in GT sports and, after his success in the 24 hours of Spa-Francorchamps with WRT, was rewarded with an Audi factory contract in 2014.
In 2016 he surprisingly came to his first DTM mission in Zandvoort after Adrien Tambay injured himself in a crash in the Saturday race. The first season at the Audi team Rosberg followed in 2017, in which Rast surprisingly won the title. A feat that has only succeeded in nine pilots in the history of the racing series.
And Rast confirmed that his sensation success was not a coincidence – and developed into the Audi Speer tip in the DTM in no time. With the end of the manufacturer era and the change to the GT3 cars, Rast 2021 took a break from the DTM. His efforts to establish itself in Formula E in a similar way were not successful.
Get Rast as the second DTM pilot title with different brands?
In 2022 he returned to the DTM with Abbot in the Audi before he has been at the start for the BMW team Schubert since 2023. It is no surprise that he could no longer connect to the dominance of his Class 1 period, since this is hardly possible in GT3 sport due to the Balance of Performance.
Nevertheless, Rast convinced until the end with combative achievements, in which he plowed through the field despite some bad start positions. If his “Mission 4”, as he tries to get the fourth DTM title, open, he would be the second driver after Klaus Ludwig (Ford and Mercedes) who got DTM title with different brands.