After Schubert-BMW title contender Marco Wittmann had already vented his frustration about the Balance of Performance (BoP) after taking 16th in qualifying, he doubled down after the title-deciding race. While Thomas Preining and Maro Engel fought each other for the title, Wittmann could only manage seventh place at Hockenheim on Sunday.
"I would have liked a three-way fight between Maro, Thomas and me," Wittmann told Motorsport-Total.com - and wanted to "fight it out with each other on track" for the DTM title. "That was - how should I put it - not allowed for us, not made possible, I don't know. But those two were up front, and unfortunately we weren't."
According to Wittmann, those responsible for the BoP should have known that after Saturday's race despite his third place. But - apart from the uncompetitive Aston Martin - only the Mercedes-AMG was made five kilograms heavier for Sunday.
Wittmann on BoP: "Maybe everyone had already clocked off"
You could already see on Saturday "that we couldn't run the pace," says Wittmann. "Mercedes, Lamborghini and Porsche were already stronger there. There were only cosmetic changes to the BoP - and even after qualifying we were seven tenths off."
The two-time DTM champion, who ultimately finished third in the overall standings with a 27-point deficit, does not mince his words. "I think this is the first time this season that there has been no BoP adjustment with a gap like that," he says. "Maybe everyone had already clocked off or was at the finale, I don't know. But it was correspondingly disappointing for us."
BMW motorsport boss after P16 on the grid: "That was predictable"
There was indeed displeasure at BMW on Sunday after Wittmann's 16th place on the grid. "That was predictable," BMW motorsport boss Andreas Roos said angrily to Motorsport-Total.com - pointing to the fastest lap times in Saturday's race.
"The fastest lap is four tenths quicker than ours," he said. For that reason, he had not expected anything different in the disappointing Sunday qualifying session, in which Kelvin van der Linde, in 14th place as the best BMW driver, lost 0.709 seconds to Porsche's pole-sitter Bastian Buus.
Saturday race pace: Should BMW have been classified more favourably?
On Saturday, Wittmann set the sixth-fastest race lap with a 1:38.448 - and was 0.440 seconds slower than Winward Mercedes driver Engel, who set the benchmark. Ford driver Arjun Maini was second (+0.284), Matteo Cairoli third (+0.295) in the Ferrari, his team-mate Thierry Vermeulen fourth (+0.400) and Preining fifth (+0.401).
Engel's and Wittmann's times are certainly comparable, as they were set after the stop, in clear air, on new tyres. Engel being so fast may also be because, after the botched stop, he no longer took any care of the tyre.
In the theoretical fastest laps - meaning the best sector times combined - Wittmann was 0.225 seconds off the benchmark also set by Engel. Besides Engel, only Cairoli (+0.156) was faster than the BMW driver in this ranking. So at BMW - as has often been the case in the past - there was a difference between race pace and qualifying pace.
Roos did not directly answer the question of whether he was unhappy with the BoP. "No, I'll just say: unhappy with the starting position. Unfortunately, our competitiveness is not at the level it would need to be to be able to fight right at the front here."
Wittmann's fighting performance goes unrewarded
Despite everything, Wittmann made a furious start from 16th place in Sunday's decisive race. In just five laps he fought his way up to seventh, but then got stuck behind Maini's Ford. The problem only resolved itself at the second stop because the HRT Ford driver received a penalty-lap (equals five seconds) for an "unsafe release".
However, Wittmann lost the position he had gained again through a successful overcut by Emil Frey Ferrari driver Matteo Cairoli and finished seventh.
"In the end, everyone knows what kind of fighter I am. Starting so many races from the back and always coming through is not luck. I think it's also a skill, keeping an overview, finding the gaps and staying calm," Wittmann says of the opening laps.
"But we simply didn't have the package to move further forward," he is convinced. What would have been the maximum possible? In view of Cairoli's overcut, you could "discuss a possible sixth place, but then that's the end of it," says Wittmann.