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To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: 'To crash once, Mr Van Der Linde, may be regarded as a misfortune; to crash twice looks like carelessness.'Van der Linde apologises to Lawson after Norisring DTM finale
KVL apology post.
I hope he's OK from the personal abuse. I agree with criticising his driving and wanting a better penalty and hoping DTM does a lot better at preventing these kind of actions going forward. But it's annoying when fans take it personally.
This. The abuse his family are getting should not be condoned whatsoever, and no doubt some of the criticism he will have received will be completely over the top (death threats e.t.c), but there's no way he should be getting out of that scot free. He could arguably be charged with bringing the series into disrepute if the masters-that-be at DTM weren't so indifferent to the whole affair.
I totally agree with you on this - KVDL deserves to criticised for his driving, but that's it. His family should not be brought into it, no personal threats should be made, nothing else is acceptable. The problem is that the internet is too easy to be anonymous, and so it's too easy to be disproportionately venomous.
Pretty much true. I completely lost interest in this series as I didn't see the reason why to watch when there's like 50 other GT3 series. GT3 DTM just gets lost in the massive pool. This did get me looking at a few things.
I think in the past things have been somewhat more balanced by virtue of the direct involvement of the manufacturers, and the relatively balanced grid. Now there's a distinct imbalance in the number of entries, and there's little clarity on where the orders are coming from... I think that's why this particular instance feels so 'dirty'. 7 Mercs, 6 Audis, 3 BMWs, 2 Ferraris and 2 Lamborghinis... if Mercedes are going to operate as one team it's not hard to see why Red Bull / Lawson felt like they were getting picked on by Mercedes for most of the season.
Class One was likely gonna mess up anyway. Remember Aston Martin gave it a go but dropped immediately and Audi was gonna drop a year later. Competitive was just too expensive and unlike Super GTs GT500 where the series has a firm grip on the Manufacturer involvement. DTM doesn't have much of a spine and has led all the Manufacturers putting the class to the ground by overspending, pushing the boundaries of competitive then leaving cause they can't pay anymore leaving no room for privateers to take over
Aston Martin had no real business in DTM and likely wouldn't have been there at all if the Merc chassis of HWA weren't up for grabs. Audi's decision to leave was partially based on not wanting to be in a two manufacturer series, so if Mercedes hadn't left, Audi likely wouldn't have done either.
I would like to think at least one manufacturer would have a made a jump from one series to the other, but we'll never know now. Class One as a common ruleset doesn't really allow for massive development so I'm not sure spending would have been that big of a problem (aside from the cost of developing the 2.0T engine, which was the major thing Mercedes were resisting, but a cost that Audi and BMW had already spent). The only data point I have for actual costs is BMW's return in 2012, which apparently cost something like €65 million and was several times what the other manufacturers were spending - so generally speaking I don't think it was that expensive, and probably on a par with what they've been spending on Formula E.
Partially implies other reasons and I'm definitely in the camp that it's money as that's the usual culprit.
When Audi decided dropped, BMW was asked if they'd drop a car or 2 in Super GT to keep going with their Class One car but BMW said no citing costs to convert as the main reason
It's always going to be a balance, how much you spend versus what the return is. I don't know what the viewing figures for the coverage has been like this year versus 2020, 2019 or 2018, but I'd imagine it's harder to justify a set level of expenditure for a series that might be about lose a third of its viewers (for example).
To be fair Marquardt also cites return on investment and indicates that if it had been more than just BMW evaluating it, it would have made more sense. He clearly feels that brand representation by your competitor(s) is a key factor.
Thing is, you didn't want to enter just 1 or 2 cars in DTM as a manufacturer. You needed a full squad almost the same amount Toyota is putting into Super GT, so costs would be doubled. Since manufacturer involvement was both key and choking around DTM, any half attempt would likely get chewed out with Team Orders a many. I can see Toyota not wanting to do a DTM attempt.
Going the GT3 route, already sees fans comparing it to other series as well as losing its “DTM” identity. Audi, BMW and Mercedes are in.
