After leaving DTM the manufacturer will join Formula E instead. What does that mean for the DTM with only two remaining manufacturers? Will it be a dead end? And what does it mean for Raceroom? Will there be Formula E in the future? It's a shame that many grids are reduced. Wtcc, lmp1, DTM soon... What is the future of motorsport. Will the high end series die out? Will it be in the end formula 1, formula E ,TCR, GT3, GT4? What new series could we expect? Although I'm not the biggest fan of the modern DTM, I'm quite sad about these news.
http://www.autobild.de/artikel/dtm-mercedes-ende-2018-in-der-formel-e-10954995.html This is not good news for DTM. The continuation of DTM may also be adversely affected. If we decide to withdraw so that financially painful AUDI will follow up, DTM will also vanish. What if the DTM disappears? What effect? https://www.motorsport.com/dtm/news/dtm-finalises-2017-class-1-regulations/ The Class 1 regulation becomes meaningless, and the plan of the collaboration race is also returned to the white paper. SuperGT has no merit according to Class1 regulation. Also, I will walk my own way.
Baddabooom! But is it really such a surprise? Volvo announced short time ago to produce no more gas engines anymore from the near future on. Politicians aim at electric drives. And German car makers are subject of what looks to become the biggest cartel scandal in industrial history of the past 50, 60 years, its much more than just Dieselgate now. While Mercedes probably becomes the crown witness for having been the first to file charges against itself, or so it is claimed, and will escape without penalties then, the other German car makers are in danger of suffering billions and billions in penalties. Additional to any Dieselgate penalties. The money has to come from somewhere. At the stock markets, stock prices rushed down in recent days. So you reduce financial sponsoring of a technology that in the long run is sentenced to die, and focus on the future market instead. I predict that Mercedes will not stay alone for long. And there will be more shifting from gas engine series to e-drive series. Live with it, that is the future. My objection is not this outlook in principle, my only objection is the unrealistic timetables politicians set up there. Right now, e-drive cars are no financially reasonabl investment for private users, but a big loss-generator, becasue every 6 month a new battery generation enters the market, and that means that the car will lose quickly significant reselling-value, and it will remain to be like this for many more years to come. Not before these cars get legs that realistically and without glossy trick-calculations can compete against gasoline-driven engines, the revolution will arrive in private homes.
And not to mention that driving an electric car in Germany produces more CO2 than modern gas engines because of our electricity mixture. In France electric cars produce less co2 because they have nuclear plants. So first thing to do would be to reduce CO2 in electricity production before erotic cars have any impact at all.
I read so many posts on social media and different boards about this topic. In my opinion there is no point in going back to the past to classic cars which are close to consumer models. This era was really great but times go by. (too many alternatives nowadays) The modern DTM is/was defined by hightech V8 monsters which were pure prototypes beneath the hood (too many compare them with GT3). The charme of german premium brands was just put on top of that. Beeing very expensive and exclusive was part of that image. What put DTM really to death to me were the many things which took place besides the track: ridiculous penalties, very strange promotion events presenting the drivers (youtube), result modifications days after the event (so the season was decided in the very last race), massive teamorder (Wehrlein: I need DRS), artificial disputes between the drivers (Ekström sayings) and last but not least the never ending modifications in nuances of the performance weights (+2,5kg at 0,1% laptime difference). It seems it just wasn't about racing but trying to do some entertainment thing. ... well, it reminds me more of american wrestling shows, where the show is more important than the sport itself.
Which could mean a DTM as silhouette series with standard chassis and few off the shelf standard motors could bring back more independence of teams? Though not sure if the German audiences would accept that... the brand affiliation is strong here. I'd think it will more likely fade out in favor of ADAC Masters/TCR/RallyCross