BMW is set to announce on Friday its decision to enter the German touring car series DTM in 2012.

The German carmaker, having pulled out of Formula One at the end of last year, admitted recently it has started work on a DTM car to coincide with new regulations.

Bild-Zeitung newspaper says an official announcement about BMW's decision will be made on Friday.

"We do not comment on speculation," said a spokesman.

The newspaper said BMW's spend on DTM next year will be one tenth of its last F1 budget, which was estimated at EUR 200 million.

The DTM car will be based on BMW's M3.

Mercedes and Audi welcomed BMW's apparent plans.

"Competition is good for business," said Mercedes' Norbert Haug, and Audi's Wolfgang Ullrich added: "We are excited about our new competition."



Jon Sibal 2009 Rendering

Stay tuned for more news... This will be exciting. Audi needs some fresh competition.

 

Wonderful news and much more logical than the travelling circus f1 nonsense.. bring back the 80's-90's ! Can't wait..
Childhood all over again..

 

I'd love to see a DTM car based on the 1 series. I'd like to see the whole series return light, turboed cars.

 

I'm of two minds about it. On one hand - BMW is gearing itself toward production race series which is fantastic. On the other, aside from some of the equipment/powertrain, the DTM cars are far removed from the road going equivalents - so how relevant is DTM? I'm sure it'll be more affordable for BMW than f1 was.

I talked to Dr. Theissen about it at Petit Le Mans and he seemed pretty pumped to be jumping back into the mix. The car is already in a testing phase but they were waiting for approval from the board before they officially announced the entry.

 

fantastic...DTM is great and this will just add to the excitement...and just imagine maybe some BMW M car DTM spin offs maybe

 

That's great news - one of my favorite race series of all time. It'd be nice to see Alfa and Opel back in the mix, too.

Here's an interesting idea (at least to me): Since BMW, Mercedes, and Porsche all have performance SUVs, why not make that a support race? Imagine X5/X6M vs. Cayenne Turbo vs. ML63... I think it'd be cool.

 

^^ Andrew, I was on a similar thought pattern the more I thought about it this morning. Could it be BMW is entering to bring it's fan base back to DTM. This would hopefully translate into brand recognition, and ultimately get customers into the showroom. At the end of the day, a lot of this is about the business and bottom line. BMW had this concern before bringing the M3 back into the ALMS program. The ALMS program has proved to be pretty successful though.

^Chris, could you imagine how awesome it would be if we ran the marketing departments. Add the Audi Q7 V12 TDI in there as well.

 

BMW confirms DTM return
15 October 2010

BMW will definitely return to the DTM, it has been confirmed today. The decision follows the announcement back in April when the manufacturer said it was its ‘intention’ to race in the German tin-top series from 2012.

“The Board of Management of BMW AG considers conditions tied to a positive decision to return to the popular touring car series have now been met,” read a statement from the manufacturer.

“In recent months BMW has been working with the DTM umbrella organisation ITR e.V. and the other manufacturers represented in the DTM on issues relating to the future technical regulations, and the long-term internationalisation of the championship. The positive nature of these discussions means BMW Motorsport can now begin planning its DTM comeback in greater detail.”

Dr Klaus Draeger, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG with responsibility for development, said: “The return of BMW to the DTM is a fundamental part of the restructuring of our motorsport activities [after we axed our F1 programme].

"With its increased commitment to production car racing, BMW is returning to its roots. The race track is the perfect place to demonstrate the impressive sporting characteristics of our vehicles against our core competitors in a high-powered environment. The DTM is the ideal stage on which to do this.”

BMW last raced in the DTM in 1994 and the intention is to use the BMW M3 as the basic DTM vehicle - a car that has enjoyed unique successes in the field of touring and sports car racing in the past.

“The entire team at BMW Motorsport is approaching this exciting project with absolute commitment,” added BMW Motorsport Director Mario Theissen.

“We began making technical preparations following our declaration of intent in April, and established parameters for a high performance vehicle concept for deployment in the DTM. The positive decision of the BMW Board of Management means we can now shift up a gear and give the green light for development.”

Meanwhile, Hans Werner Aufrecht, Chairman of the Board of ITR - the DTM's commercial rights holder and promoter, has welcomed the news.

“This is a further milestone for the future of our popular racing series, and proves that our efforts over the past few years have paid off,” he continued.

“We laid the foundation for this in conjunction with the DMSB and the existing DTM manufacturers, namely Audi and Mercedes-Benz. Thus I would like to heartily thank all parties.

“I am personally looking forward to again seeing the three premium brands of Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz competing against each other on the race track. Our fans have waited a long time for this.”

SOURCE:BMW confirms DTM return - GPUpdate.net

 

I am now praying to God that Yamauchi includes DTM cars again in GT5... One of my favorite parts of the original Gran Turismo was the DTM group. Also, Speed does show DTM races in the NECK-CAR offseason. I watched all the rounds of last year's DTM and BTCC over the summer.

 

I think that's a lot of what it comes down to. Actually, if you look at Formula One and the E60 M5 they were really, really pushing to draw connections between the E60 M5 and the BMW Williams & Sauber cars saying that the V10 was the basis for an F1 engine and that other technologies had filtered down.

My guess is that attempted approach (trying to relate open-wheel race cars to road cars) didn't translate well nor did the frightening F1 budgets that ultimately yielded very little for BMW. With DTM, they can show off a V8 very similar to the S65 in the M3 and probably operate a much, much smaller budget for DTM in their home market while more or less directly marketing the M3. Plus, the wave of old school DTM nostaglia sweeping car enthusiasts the last few years doesn't hurt!

Long story short -they dumped hundreds of millions of Euros into F1 and nothing came of it. In the second season of ALMS they won manufacturer's and team championships and could probably make a very serious run at DTM in the first season or two while directly focusing on the production vehicles. If you're going to race, this is probably the most financially justifiable way for a company to do so. I just hope DTM moves back to a formula like they did in the 80's where cars were close to production spec.