One driver BMW brings to the DTM is their American factory driver, Joey Hand. In 2011, Hand won the 24 Hours of Daytona, the GT class at the 12 Hours of Sebring, finished on third in the GTE Pro class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and won the 2011 American Le Mans Series GT Champion with teammate Dirk Müller. Hand is the first American to race in a DTM race since 1994, when 1985 Indianapolis 500 winner Danny Sullivan ran a Alfa Romeo at the Donnington Park round of the championship. Sullivan finished 10th in the first race and 4th in the second race.
Along with Hand, BMW factory drivers Dirk Werner (Germany), Andy Priaulx (United Kingdom) and Augusto Farfus (Brazil) are all new to the DTM. The only rookie Audi driver will be Adrien Tambay, son of former Formula One driver Patrick Tambay. Mercedes-Benz will introduce two drivers to the DTM world, Canadian Robert Wickens and Spaniard Roberto Mehri. Wickens and Mehri each were champions in 2011, with Wickens winning the Formula Renault 3.5 Championship (beatng current Formula One drivers Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo) and Mehri dominated the Formula 3 Euro Series, winning 11 of 21 races and defeating second place Marco Wittman by 121 points.
The 2012 DTM season will contest of 10 rounds from this Sunday until October 21. The Hockenheimring bookends the season with the remaining eight rounds being hosted in 5 different European countries with one non-championship round. The four non-Germany rounds of the championship take place at Brand Hatch (UK, round 3), the Red Bull Ring (Austria, round 4), Zandvoort (Netherlands, round 7) and Valencia's Circuit Ricardo Tormo (Spain, round 9). Other than Hockenheim, the German DTM race will take place at EuroSpeedway Lausitz, the famous Norisring on the streets of Nuremburg, the Nürburgring and Oscherleben. The non-championship round takes place between the Norisring and Nürburgring races at Munich's Olympic Stadium, host of the 1972 Summer Olympic Games, 1974 FIFA World Cup final and the UEFA Euro 1988 final. This event uses a similar format to the annual Race Of Champions held each December.
I predict that BMW will have their struggles but will ultimately win a race late this season will have at least one driver on th podium in thre races this year. Audi and Mercedes will be in a strong fight with one another at each round and I think the Audi driver Mike Rockenfeller will win the championship in 2012. Rockenfeller started the 2011 season well, winning at Zandvoort but his accident at Le Mans sidelined him for one DTM race and he never has as racy as he was before the accident. I think Rockenfeller's toughest competitors for the championship will be fellow Audi drivers Timo Scheider, Mattias Ekström and Filipe Albuquerque and the Mercedes driver Gary Paffett.
The first round of the DTM championship can be seen in the United States on SPEED2 at 8:00 am EST, Sunday morning.
