As in 2021, the DTM calendar 2022 will only have eight race weekends instead of the planned nine: This was announced by the DTM umbrella organization ITR in a press release shortly before Christmas.
It is now official what the sparrows have been whistling from the rooftops for some time: The previously unknown third weekend of the season on June 4th and 5th, the venue of which they wanted to announce at a later date, will not take place.
Actually, this date would have been reserved for the TT Circuit in Assen, but DTM boss Gerhard Berger and organizer Lee van Dam did not agree on future conditions.
Assen-Promoter wanted to renegotiate the contract
“After three years of hard work with the ITR, we have decided not to continue our contract for the near future,” van Dam is quoted as saying in the press release.
The DTM model with aces stipulated that the event would not be organized by the race track, but by van Dam’s agency LDP International bv as an external promoter.
According to information from “Motorsport-Total.com”, the DTM was a guest on the motorcycle cult route as part of a three-year contract with an option to extend it from 2019 to 2021.
“Due to the increased costs for the event as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we tried to renegotiate our contract, but we did not find a mutually acceptable solution and decided how to proceed together,” explains van Dam. “We would like to thank everyone involved and fans for their support and for three great years of DTM Assen and wish the ITR all the best for the 2022 season.”
Assen best-attended DTM weekend 2021
According to the organizer’s official figures, the races in the Netherlands were the best-attended of the entire season in 2021 with a total of 40,000 spectators over the entire weekend. This is quite remarkable for an event outside of the DTM core country Germany, although it is also due to the fact that there were restrictions at many other races due to the coronavirus crisis.
“In long discussions we have tried again and again to put profitability in a ratio that is acceptable to both sides,” said ITR Managing Director Benedict Böhme. “In the end we came to the joint decision to terminate the contract early. At this point I would like to thank Lee van Dam for the cooperation and three very good events in Assen.”
In addition, the third DTM race weekend would have overlapped with the 1,000-kilometer endurance race of the GT World Challenge Europe in Le Castellet, in which numerous DTM teams also want to take part.
DTM prevents deadline collision with GTWCE in Le Castellet
“With the limitation of the calendar, among other things, we are fulfilling the teams’ request to rethink the June date and to hold the 2022 season, as well as the last, on eight race weekends,” says DTM manager Frederic Elsner, based the decision on interests the teams back.
“The logistical effort would have been too big with an additional foreign event in June, where at least one large motorsport event is planned every weekend.”
Due to the new planning, half of all season races now take place in Germany. Especially on the first three weekends, the teams now have three or four weeks between the races to solve any teething problems before the eight-week summer break is due after the fourth weekend at the Norisring.
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