German Touring Car Masters Series
Hankook and the DTM return to Germany’s Lausitzring is the venue for round seven of the DTM season with the title race coming to a head. The exclusive tyre supplier to the series says that its race tyre could play a key role in the final stages of the season, due to its “high degree of consistency and predictability”, which allow for aggressive race strategies.
Hankook will continue as the exclusive supplier of DTM for the next four years, having signed an early extension to its partnership contract with DTM marketer ITR. The tyre maker has been involved in one of the most popular international touring car series as official partner and exclusive tyre supplier since 2011. The new contract means Hankook will become the longest-standing tyre supplier in the history of the international racing series.
Hankook has supplied several demanding series in 2018, including the DTM, FIA Formula 3 European Championship, 24H Series powered by Hankook, the VLN Endurance Championship, and the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring, with the Ventus Race tyre.
A third-place finish at the Hockenheimring in Germany yesterday sufficed for Gary Paffett to clinch his second DTM title. The British driver ended the season with 255 points, four points ahead of last year’s champion René Rast. This year’s victory in the touring car championship comes 13 years after Paffett won his first DTM title.
With his win at Brands Hatch last weekend, Paul Di Resta closed the gap with championship leader, fellow Mercedes-Benz driver Garry Paffett, to just 29 points in the overall standings. This was Di Resta’s third win in Brands Hatch and the tenth of his DTM career. Gary Paffett crossed the finish line as runner-up after 40 laps of racing.
Between 2006 and 2013, the DTM touring car series was a regular visitor to the Brands Hatch circuit in Kent, and following a four-year hiatus DTM drivers will race there once again this weekend. Instead of using the 1.2-mile Indy circuit favoured in past years, the action in 2018 will take place on the full, 2.4-mile GP circuit.
Following the season finale at the Hockenheimring in Germany last month, the DTM touring car championship and exclusive tyre partner Hankook are heading for extra time in the land of the rising sun. On 11 and 12 November, the three competing manufacturers, Audi, BMW and Mercedes AMG, will be present at the final of the Super GT series in Motegi/Japan, returning the visit to Hockenheim made by Super GT.
The Hankook supplied DTM championship enters the final third of its 2017 season at the Nürburgring this weekend for races 13 and 14. The tyre manufacturer and exclusive DTM partner states that the correct management of the race tyre and a pit stop strategy tailored to the racetrack and the car set-up will be keys to success in the Eifel Mountains. In the last meeting at Zandvoort, discussed in the video below, this was exemplified by Loic Duval (Audi), who climbed from 13th on the grid to finish runner-up, completing 26 of the 37 laps on one set of the Ventus Race – the longest stint by any of the drivers, and one that earned him the first podium of his DTM career.
Alloy brand ATS Wheels, distributed in the UK by Wolfrace Wheels, has been confirmed as the official wheel supplier for the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM). ATS hardware will be found under the arches of the cars of all three OEMs competing in the series; Mercedes, Audi and BMW. ATS will supply 12x18in (front) and 13x18in (back) aluminium forged wheels, produced using a special alloy selected for its extreme strength and lightweight.
All cars competing in the DTM in 2017, starting at Hockenheim this coming weekend, won’t just ride on a new Hankook tyre. As of this year, the entire field will race on ATS forged aluminium rims. Wheel manufacturer Uniwheels developed the 12×18 front and 13×18 rear rims specifically for the German touring car championship, and with this supply arrangement, ATS becomes an official DTM series industry partner.
Cars competing in the DTM this season will wear a completely new generation of Hankook slick. The new Ventus Race is the fourth generation of Hankook slick supplied to the touring car championship and comes in the front axle size 300/680 R 18 and rear axle 320/710 R 18 – the same sizes as used in 2016. Hankook Tire states that it generates more grip than its predecessor and, when pushed hard, will wear more quickly and intensively than the tyres used last season. Depending on driving style, these characteristics are expected to significantly influence lap times.
Hankook Tire doesn’t just supply tyres to the DTM touring car championship – it also awards the fastest pit stop tyre changers. BMW Team MTEK delivered the fastest tyre change times over the past season, and by doing so has won Hankook’s Best Pit Stop Award 2016. Manfred Sandbichler, Hankook Tire’s motorsport director for Europe, presented the Hankook trophy to the winning team at Team MTEK headquarters on 8 December.
The existing partnership between Hankook Tire and German touring car championship DTM has been extended for a further three years. The tyre maker signed a new contract with DTM promoter ITR e.V. last Friday following the press conference held for the opening of the current season; under the terms of this contract, Hankook will continue to deliver its Ventus Race DTM tyres to Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz until the end of the 2019 season.
The grand finale of the DTM season will be contested on the Hockenheimring, as is traditional, and the touring car series’ exclusive tyre supplier, Hankook will this year celebrate five years and 56 races. For Pascal Wehrlein, the final weekend could turn into a victory parade. The Mercedes-Benz driver currently leads the drivers’ classification with a 37-point advantage and has been allocated just 2.5kg more performance weight than his closest rivals Edoardo Mortara and Mattias Ekström (both Audi).
With its many corners, the 3.931km Moscow Raceway is one of the slower tracks on the DTM calendar. The fastest passage is the almost 900 metre home straight, where race cars reach a top speed of just on 250km/h. On the counter-clockwise track, Hankook’s race tyres come under a heavy load on the cars’ right side, but this has no impact on the performance of the tyre. “The team engineers correct this, for instance, by making different adjustments to the air pressure on the left and right sides depending on the load. The highest tyre wear occurs on the right front, but our Ventus Race withstood this impressively over the last years,” explains Hankook’s DTM race engineer Thomas Baltes.
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