Touring Cars
Mercedes-AMG is the last of the three Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters manufacturers to announce driver line-ups for the 2017 season, which means that all 18 names are now known.
As each brand will enter six cars this year instead of eight, Mercedes-AMG had to lay off some drivers.
The Stuttgart marque decided to keep only half of last year’s squad. Christian Vietoris, Maximilian Götz and Daniel Juncadella will therefore no longer be part of the DTM effort.
The team decided to keep Garry Paffett, Lucas Auer, Robert Wickens and Paul di Resta. Paffett and di Resta are both former series champions whilst Auer and Wickens have six victories and seven pole positions between them. They will be joined by last year’s runner-up and long-time Audi driver Edoardo Mortara, who will be the only driver to switch brands during the off season, and Maro Engel. The German driver will return to DTM for the first time since 2011 and at the moment is the only Mercedes-AMG driver who is yet to stand on the podium.
In order to reduce costs, all six Mercedes-AMG’s cars will be run by Team HWA this year.
BMW was the first brand to announce its 2017 line-up consisted of current champion Marco Wittmann, Timo Glock, Augusto Farfus, Bruno Spengler, Tom Blomqvist and Maxime Martin, whilst Mattias Ekström, Nico Müller, Jamie Green, René Rast, Mike Rockenfeller and Loïc Duval will form the Audi team.
The 2017 DTM season will start in Hockenheim on 6-7 May.
Tomasz Kubiak