Jack Aitken was almost the DTM leader going into the final race before the drying track proved his undoing: Why he fell back from second to sixth place
Jack Aitken looked like a clear podium contender—and a possible new DTM leader—for much of Saturday’s DTM race at the Hockenheimring. But in the final eight laps, the Emil Frey Ferrari driver dropped from second to sixth place, leaving him as an outsider in Sunday’s title decider.
But why was the former Formula 1 driver fighting with completely blunt weapons in the end? “When the track dried out, we really had these bad conditions for the Ferrari,” “In previous years, we killed the tires when we used the rain tires in these mixed conditions.” That was “the weakness of the car.”
In the last 20 minutes of the race, he and teammate Ben Green lost “one to one and a half seconds per lap.” “It’s frustrating when you have to watch your title rivals overtake you, but there’s nothing you can do about it,” said Aitken.
“Then the temperatures go crazy”
First, Ricardo Feller and Morris Schuring pushed him off the podium, then Maro Engel and Ayhancan Güven also passed him in the last three laps. “I just didn’t want to have any crashes and take the points,” said Aitken. The phenomenon is both a blessing and a curse, because it also explains the often good starting positions of the Emil Frey Ferrari drivers, who dominated qualifying this time.
“We put a lot of strain on the tires,” explained Aitken. “Generating this energy is good for qualifying.” Especially since tire warming is prohibited in the DTM. “But when we use this very soft rain tire compound on a relatively dry track or with little water, the temperatures go crazy.”
According to Aitken, it’s “something about the Ferrari that kills the tires.” “It’s extremely frustrating, but we’ve known this for many years, ever since the car made its debut. And so far, we haven’t found a solution.”
Tire pressure too high? Emil Frey technical director defends himself
Therefore, similar conditions on Sunday would be poison for the team. “We want either completely dry or completely wet conditions – one or the other,” Aitken clarifies. In the paddock, some were of the opinion that the Emil Frey team had set the tire pressure too high on the drying track. “We tried to reduce it for the second stint,” Emil Frey technical director Jürg Flach defends himself. “But we would have had to reduce it so much that we would have entered a range where it would have been risky.”
This is because the Ferrari 296 GT3 heats up the front axle very strongly via the brakes – and cooling the brakes on the vehicle is also critical in some cases.
Aitken’s plan for Sunday: first pole position, then victory
What hurts Flach particularly is that after qualifying, the Ferrari had to be loaded with ten kilograms due to a change in the balance of performance, and the boost pressure was also massively reduced, especially in the lower range, making it almost impossible to get out of the corners. “That was brutal,” says the Swiss driver. “It affects us most in the hairpin.”
However, the good qualifying result was not due to the good classification. “The BoP was okay, but not outstanding,” he says. “But the massive difference was that we got the tires to work much better.”
Aitken is now only 13 points behind DTM leader Lucas Auer in the championship – and there are still 28 points up for grabs. However, the Emil Frey top driver is only in seventh place in the overall standings.
“The problem is that I have to beat six guys by five or ten points,” Aitken knows. “Realistically, I’ll need a lot of luck to do that. But we’ll try to get pole position and get the points that way—and then win the race.” Flach adds: “We need a stroke of luck now.”
