"It was great. It's much nicer to drive yourself than to just talk about it!" said today's F1 TV commentator Christian Danner after his victory with Stefan Rupp in the Alfa Romeo 155. The difficult conditions were more than challenging last Saturday, September 9th, because when the race was opened after two introductory laps, the stormy, rainy Eifel weather made things difficult for everyone. Stephan Rupp and DTM legend Christian Danner proved to be best able to cope with the difficult conditions. With their four-wheel-drive Alfa Romeo 155 V6 ti, the two Bavarians secured overall victory in the fifth race of the Touring Car Classics at the Nürburgring.
Clear victory for Alfa
With Toto Wolff, Volker Strycek, Roland Asch, Altfried Heger, Klaus Ludwig, Marc Hessen, Volker Schneider and Christian Danner, several former drivers took part as guest starters. Danner was once again allowed to drive the all-wheel drive Alfa Romeo 155 V6 ti, as he did over 20 years ago, which was out of reach for the competitors. With a clear start-finish victory, the red Italian with the infernal sound was in a class of its own. For car owner Rupp, it was his second win of the season after a long run of bad luck.
Richard Weber in the Diebels-BMW was able to secure his unchallenged second place at the rear, where Strycek's Opel and Ludwig's Mercedes were battling for third place.
But after his commanding drive in third place, Klaus Ludwig had to stand idly by after the mid-race driver changeover as his team partner Markus Wüstefeld was first involved in a spin and then in a collision. Youngster Yannik Trautwein showed great driving talent as the new third-placed driver in the STW BMW 320i.
Volker Strycek was penalized with two drive-through penalties for crossing the white line at the pit exit.
Some of the amateur drivers really stepped on the gas and tried to do better than usual under these circumstances with inferior equipment. Others, on the other hand, left plenty of room to the limit to avoid damaging their cars.
The race finally ended behind the safety car after the Mercedes 190 of Markus Wüstefeld and the BMW M3 DTM of Dr. Michael Vogt got in each other's way.
Mercedes motorsport boss in the 190E
The 45-year-old Head of Mercedes Motorsport Toto Wolff did the honors in the Mercedes 190E Evo ll DTM, in which Michael Schumacher took part in two DTM races in 1991. Roland Asch last drove the original green and white car of the Debis-Zakspeed team at the 90th anniversary celebrations of the Nürburgring in June 2017.
DTM debut 25 years too late
The Audi 80 B4 prototype deserves special mention as a highlight among the vehicles. It was supposed to enrich the DTM in 1993. Unfortunately, it never got to race. The beautiful car was therefore able to celebrate its big DTM debut some 25 years later.
After this race, Thorsten Stadler leads the annual classification of the German Touring Car Classics by a narrow margin of three points. The next round will take place in Hockenheim from October 6 to 7.
