ROWE could enter the DTM as customer team for BMW in 2019
ROWE Racing, BMW Motorsport’s partner in endurance racing, is among the finalists to become a customer racing team for the Bavarian manufacturer in the 2019 DTM.
“The rumours heard in the paddock about us racing in DTM are true,” said Hans-Peter Naundorf, ROWE team manager, to Endurance Info. “Things are not finalised yet and I currently estimate at 50% the chances of seeing us in DTM next season.”
Series promoter ITR working hard on securing a strong grid for 2019 and beyond with Mercedes-AMG withdrawing from the series at the end of the current season, leaving Audi and BMW alone on the grid next year.
Cost control has been a battling point for both manufacturers, with each running six cars for the last two seasons. The ITR, Audi and BMW are working on securing 16 cars on the grid for 2019 in total, with each manufacturer introducing a two-car customer racing team.
“DTM is a strong, professional championship with an important marketing operation around it. When looking at potential customer teams, it’s not only whether they are able to successfully run the cars, but also whether they have the necessary business and marketing acumen to deal with the financial and PR requirements of the series,” a DTM spokesperson told TouringCarTimes.
Audi Motorsport boss Dieter Gass believes the introduction of customer teams will create new opportunities for young drivers.
“Since the customer teams won’t have to work on developing the car and that, with the Class One regulations (in force from next season), we have increased the number of standard parts, I think the budget for a customer team will be between one and two million EUR per car,” Gass said to TouringCarTimes.
“In terms of what kind of drivers this will attract, we will be more looking at young F3 or F2 drivers who cannot quite make the next step in the single seater ladder, but that can raise the budget to race in a professional and competitive championship such as the DTM, which I think is a very exciting prospect,” added Gass.
The arrival of customer racing teams could also be a way to break the team orders within manufacturers in the series. “I think having customer racing teams would be good, because that would allow us to race among ourselves,” Team Phoenix’s boss Ernst Moser said to TouringCarTimes.
Long term Audi partner Team WRT has been rumoured to be among the contenders for Audi, as has Mattias Ekström’s team EKS, currently involved in the FIA World Rallycross Championship.
