Timo Glock achieved his best result with McLaren at Spielberg—but he could have done better: Why he got off lightly despite the penalty and why the DTM season opener got off to a rocky start
Timo Glock achieved his best result of his McLaren era with a seventh-place finish in Saturday’s DTM race at Spielberg, but there was clearly more to be had: The former Formula 1 driver would likely have finished fourth had he not received a penalty lap—costing five seconds—for spinning his wheels during the pit stop, which he then served too late.
“In the end, it was my mistake,” Glock admitted after the race. “I realized the pit stop was good and just took my foot off the brake a split second too early.” Glock nearly lost seventh place as well, because the McLaren driver didn’t serve his penalty lap—which he received on lap 28—until lap 30.
The regulations state that the finish line may be crossed no more than once after the penalty is announced and before passing through the penalty zone. Why did the stewards turn a blind eye and rule “no further action”?
This is because the driver was not informed of the penalty until immediately before crossing the finish line. Additionally, the team was able to prove that there were radio communication issues.
Not the first time Dörr-McLaren has experienced spinning wheels
Interesting: Teammate Ben Dörr was penalized twice in 2025—at the Norisring and in the season finale at Hockenheim—for spinning wheels during a pit stop, while this rarely happens with other teams. This may be because the clutch, when it gets hot, doesn’t always disengage cleanly.
That is why the Dörr drivers have to keep their foot on the brake pedal as well as the clutch pedal throughout the entire pit stop. In Glock’s case, however, the spinning wheels in Spielberg were apparently due to him releasing the clutch a little too early.
Pit stops remain the team’s Achilles’ heel in other respects as well: Only on Saturday did Glock’s stop go smoothly at 7.2 seconds; on Sunday, the crew needed 8.5 and 8.2 seconds for Ben Dörr, and 8.8 and 10.8 seconds for Glock. “We still have room for improvement here,” acknowledges GT3 director Volker Strycek.
Best DTM result for Ben Dörr after an all-night shift
In terms of pure pace, Glock’s teammate was faster on both days, but on Saturday, the youngster—starting from second on the grid—was the unfortunate victim of a collision with Land Porsche rookie Bastian Buus and crashed into the guardrails.
“We had serious damage to the rear,” says Dörr’s team manager Axel Funke. “Thanks to a great team effort and an overnight shift, we got the car back in shape.” On Sunday, Ben Dörr drove the repaired car to seventh place, also his best DTM result to date, while Glock finished 15th.
“A lot has changed on my side of the car. A lot of adjustments were made, which made it significantly more difficult,” Glock notes regarding the challenging preparation. “With only one real test, which we had last week, but which unfortunately wasn’t satisfactory either because we only had problems and I couldn’t really drive much.”
“Basic issues standing in our way”: Why Glock got off to a bad start
With Gerd Kusstatscher, with whom Glock previously worked at the former BMW team Walkenhorst, the Odenwald native has a “new engineer who’s really doing a good job, but who doesn’t know the car at all and has to get up to speed first.”
In addition, on Friday they had “the next issue with problems on the car,” he says, without going into detail. “In the evening, we realized that the ride heights we were running weren’t actually correct because we had an error with the measuring instruments,” explains Glock.
“So, a lot of basic issues that are somehow getting in our way. At least on my car—everything was fine with Ben’s.” Consequently, Glock was poorly prepared for the first qualifying session. “For us this morning, it was a matter of taking a guess and seeing what we could do,” he says, describing the situation leading up to his ninth-place starting position.
“We actually looked pretty good for that—and now in the race we made another change that was positive.” At least on Saturday, Glock said he had a “problem-free day.” How is the team responding? When asked about the issue with the car’s ride height, team manager Funke said: “We’ve identified the error and are addressing it internally.”