Heinz-Harald Frentzen explains why he felt more like football in the DTM after F1 and reveals how early manufacturers decided on a driver
Ex-racing driver Heinz-Harald Frentzen, who is now 56 years old, first switched to the DTM with Opel after his Formula 1 career in 2004 – and drove for Audi in 2006. He achieved a total of four podium finishes and one pole position. What took some getting used to for him?
“In your team there’s not only your team-mate, but all the works drivers – it’s Audi,” Frentzen gets out in the official Formula 1 podcast Beyond the Grid. “I had ten teammates – and after the first race it was decided who would win the championship.”
A strong statement, as it is well known that in the DTM in manufacturer times it was often decided early on which driver was set for the title, but it was rarely said so clearly.
“You had to drive for him to help him win the championship,” emphasises Frentzen, who was Tom Kristensen’s teammate at Audi Team Abt in 2006. The Dane finished third in the final standings as the best Audi driver, Frentzen came in seventh as the third-best Audi driver.
“I thought to myself, ‘Oh God, where did you end up?’ I had loved more this selfish kind of racing, that you drive for yourself and don’t care about the other drivers because it’s your race,” Frentzen gives insight.
“And suddenly I found myself in the DTM. It’s like football,” Frentzen draws an interesting comparison. “You have to play this game differently – and like a football game.”
Incidentally, Frentzens left the DTM in disgrace with Audi at the end of 2006: for in his last DTM race at Hockenheim, he was run through after taking pole, and in the end was shot down by Abt colleague Mattias Ekström.
Afterwards, the driver from Mönchengladbach announced “consequences” without going into detail. Even before that, the then 39-year-old had been critical of his team, saying that he had been disadvantaged in the race strategy compared to his team-mates.
“This shows that I am not very popular in the team. It’s been like that all season,” Frentzen said at the time.
