DTM Spain - What the *&$%

[bt52b]

Haven't seen the race yet. Green won. Audi had a hissy fit and withdrew all remaing cars on lap 50 of 58

[djparky]

err well, perhaps a bit unfair on Audi, they'd just watched virtually all their top cars getting crashed into by various Mercedes, Hakkinen nailed Tomczyk in turn 1 and then some back marker nailed Ekstrom a few laps later- it was a joke really, it did look like the Mercedes drivers were way over the edge of what was acceptable- not saying Audi are whiter than white- what they did at Zandvoort was pathetic

[BDunnell]

A friend who was watching it on TV in Germany has just texted me to say that it was the most pathetic 'race' he's ever seen.

Can the DTM survive being a two-make series? Not if this sort of thing goes on, surely. It's always a problem in such situations.

[Steelrat]

Apparently they decided to withdraw to "promote fair racing"

http://www.crash.net/news_view~cid~13~id~154853.htm

[Mixa]

To be honest Audi should get a huge penalty. Them aint thinking the fans and will pull the cars out of the race when Mercedes drivers will hit for them what the?

Just cant understand why Audi is doing something like this. The last few years them hasnt been playing by the rules and now is whining about them. There are a lot of situation for past few years about Audi what the fans has been disliking like:

- The few seasons already them has thried to play them drivers to titles by giving more points to Audi drivers who needs them. 1. By moving away when champ contender has came 2. when a driver has already done a pit and other hasnt but them are in the same lap,just move away and block Mercedes drivers.. Actually both works very well for sure. Merc drivers are still playing fair and even 05 models can win the races if them can!

-Always complaining about the penalties! Offcourse them are trying to guard them drivers for penalties but just dont get some of them.. Also Audi were the team what was saying,"give them split points for Eurospeedway because our drivers were out of points" . Ok Eurospeedway race with safety car epic wasnt right but Im sure you guys are getting my point.

- and todays take offs by Mercedes drivers? What Audi has then been doing? Last year thried to wreck B.Schneider´s car when it was going to title,Ekström´s take off at Hocke a few years back against Alesi just to mention a few. Audi drivers are always snatching bumbers off to Merc drivers and doing overtakes by pushing! Fair racing? no way. Somehow I still miss the old ITC/DTM when almost everything was still possible

Thats just a few! I liked the Audi team when them had a TT so Im not an Audi hater. Just the last few years,GRRR!!

[VkmSpouge]

I just hope this race doesn't have it's points cut in half. Well done to Jamie Green for winning, pity it has been completely overshadowed by this farce.

[CarlMetro]

One of the worst displays of throwing toys out of a pram I've ever had the displeasure to see. A very poor move by Audi who obviously gave no thought to their fanbase

Personally I didn't see anything too over the top, apart from La Rosa's move on Ekstrom but even then all La Rosa did was give as good as he was getting.

I suggest Audi stay well away from the BTCC if that's the way the react if one of their cars get a little door rubbing

Still, makes for an interesting finale...........

[jens]

Mercedes-Benz drivers have often been more rude than Audi drivers and probably Audi thought that enough is enough. I think it's pretty hard to criticize the drivers personally as they are following team orders. The problem of such series is that there are only 2 makes competing and one driver has basically 9 team-mates. So that creates such a strange situation, when most of the drivers are not racing for result, but for a crash or blocking. If a title contender has pitted, then it's quite usual that a driver from a rival team in a year-or-two-old car is kept out to start blocking him heavily.

Häkkinen came to inside of Tomczyk and broke too late and as Tomczyk was alongside him, he had no chance to turn into the corner. So both went straight on and dropped to the second half of the pack. In La Rosa's defence I can say that Ekström pushed him onto the grass, where there was no grip. I guess that if la Rosa had wanted, he could have avoided the collision, but in such a delicate situation he of course didn't want to. In fact, in revenge Audi drivers tried to do its best to eliminate MB's title contender Spengler, but the Canadian managed to avoid a collision to finish second (surprisingly Green didn't slow down in the end) after suffering a drive through penalty for a reason I don't know. Premat blocked Spengler for some laps, but then he went wide in Turn1 and Spengler got through. Luhr pushed Spengler onto the gravel and also Rockenfeller was banging wheels with Spengler, but went off. It looked like that after the last incident Audi decided to withdraw as they didn't have any more drivers left in front of Spengler, who could possibly prevent him from scoring more points.

It doesn't create a good athmosphere for the last race though. I won't be surprised at all if all the three title contenders are going to be eliminated...

[BobbyC]

Taking all their toys and going home just doesn't cut it.

Instead of going for the win and saying a big "in your face" to authorities by winning, they acted like President Pelosi, Vice-President Byrd, and his left-hand man, Dingy Harry.

Cut and Run.

Surrender.

The better protest would be to go for the win and put a message on the cars the next week in protest (remember the 1996 NASCAR Kyle Petty Protest Car). In 1996, Felix Sabates protested Kyle Petty's penalty at a previous race by painting his car black (intended to resemble a certain competitor's car), with the message "All is Fair in Love and Racing" in Spanish. (Sabates is a Cuban emigre.)

Can you imagine if Audi had run the next DTM race with that phrase on all their cars instead of this stupid protest? That message would have been a better swipe.

[inimitablestoo]

I remember the series in its former life imploding at the end of 1996 when Alfa Romeo and Opel withdrew. I've got a sinking feeling it's going to happen again...