What was going on with Thomas Preining? The radio messages from the second-placed Porsche works driver gave cause for concern at Sunday’s DTM race in Zandvoort that he had a problem with the traction control. Because halfway through the race, his race engineer Kai Störling radioed: “We have no TC for now. Keep going, we are running P2.”
TC stands for Traction Control. So did Preining’s Porsche 911 GT3 R have a traction control failure? “No,” explains the Austrian in an interview with “Motorsport-Total.com”. “The only thing that mattered was that I should push hard like in qualifying.”
But what does this have to do with traction control? “Traction control slows you down, of course. I wanted to know whether I should manage the tires or not. We actually drove 100 percent to the end. It was full throttle from start to finish,” he explains the race strategy.
Preining on traction control: “I like to have it in my foot myself”
Because Preining, who was third after the start, undercut the Landgraf Mercedes driver Maro Engel during the pit stop and was now chasing the leading Abt Audi driver Ricardo Feller.
Did he completely deactivate the traction control, which is standard in the GT3 cars and is also usually used? “It’s never completely over,” explains Preining. “We say ‘no traction control’ if we only use it very little. That’s up to the driver.”
He himself is a pilot who relies less on electronic support when accelerating out of corners. “I like to have it in my foot myself,” confirms Preining. “But at a certain point in the race you have to start managing the tyres. And the engineer has the best overview of the race because in the car I can only see who is directly in front and behind me.”
“Said settings because I don’t know it by heart”
That also explains Preining’s radio traffic eight laps before the end of the race. “TC 5.1, TC 5.1 – if you struggle with tires,” radioed his race engineer through a traction control setup mode should he have tire problems.
“We rolled out certain settings during testing last week,” explains Preining what it was all about. “He told me that because I don’t know it by heart. I told him beforehand what my problems were.”
What problems was he referring to? “Oversteer, too little traction, especially in the middle sector. Of course, that affects tire management, but it wasn’t anything serious,” said Preining. Such radio messages about the use of traction control are nothing unusual during a race, says the Manthey EMA driver. “We do that again and again, but this time it was broadcast on TV,” he smiles.
Despite all attempts no chance against winner Feller
At one point, a conversation with the race engineer also involved AC, i.e. air conditioning. The “Grello” pilot asked Störling if he could activate it because of the heat in the cockpit without losing too much power. Because the use of air conditioning has a negative effect on engine performance in most cars.
Despite all attempts, Preining was not able to really attack Feller, even if he temporarily reduced the gap to around two seconds after the stop. “I pushed like crazy – right up to the last lap. But I couldn’t do anything, he was simply too fast,” says Preining, who took second place in the DTM.