The 23-year-old South African Sheldon van der Linde is the new DTM champion: In his fourth season, third place at the season finale in Hockenheim is enough for the Schubert-BMW driver to win the title, which means that BMW can celebrate for the first time since 2016.
Back then, Marco Wittmann took the crown, who today secured his first win of the season in the Walkenhorst-BMW. And made Sunday’s race really exciting.
Wittmann stormed to the front right from the start and pushed pole setter Rene Rast into second place. The Abt-Audi driver, who was under pressure to win in the fight for the title, relied on an undercut and then overtook the Walkenhorst-BMW driver in a spectacular duel with several contacts.
But then Rast made a driving mistake and slid off the track at the entrance to the Parabolica, allowing Wittmann to regain the lead and defend it to the finish. Even if he had won, Rast would only have won the title if Sheldon van der Linde had not finished sixth. So the youngster’s title win was never really in jeopardy.
Winward-Mercedes driver Lucas Auer, who was only two points behind van der Linde before the race, managed to move up to sixth place in the early stages after his bad luck in qualifying and grid position eleven. But then the 25 kilograms of success ballast that he got in the car in the race had an effect and he finished seventh.
The Austrian finished runners-up eleven points behind Sheldon van der Linde, while Rast ended up 15 points behind. In the team championship, Sheldon van der Linde’s rookie squad Schubert had already secured the title on Saturday.