Saturday at Oschersleben was already a disaster for Nicki Thiim with 18th on the grid and 12th at the finish, which caused a lot of frustration. But on Sunday, things got even worse for the DTM mid-season champion: In qualifying, where the Aston Martin pilot only managed 19th despite an adjusted Balance of Performance (BoP), tire manufacturer Pirelli made a grave mistake.
"This morning, to put it professionally, Pirelli put the front tires on the rear rims - and vice versa," Thiim reveals. "I'm glad it's over, to be honest - a weekend to completely write off."
Already on Saturday he had "no chance" - and today "Pirelli really messed up the whole day," says the Dane, who managed to salvage 13th place in the race. "A mistake like this simply should not happen at this level. This obviously has a big impact on our championship. It is not the team's fault," he says, defending his crew at ran.de.
"The car is crooked": Why Thiim had no chance
In fact, such a faux pas has massive implications for performance: Thiim had both rear tires mounted on the right and both front tires on the left - and they differ in their dimensions. The rear tires are one centimeter wider and have a two-centimeter larger diameter than the front tires.
"The problem is that the tires differ in height and rolling circumference. If I have tires from the rear on the front axle, my whole car no longer works. My rolling circumference is different, I have different wheel speeds," explains Mario Schuhbauer, who acts as DTM sporting director for the Comtoyou team, at ran.de.
"At first I thought it was a puncture," Thiim initially suspected a tyre problem. No wonder, as Schuhbauer clarifies: "The car is crooked." And there are further problems: "The ABS system no longer works. My differential gets too hot because I have different speeds at the wheels."
Different wheel speeds triggered chain reaction
In fact, the sensors on the left side of the vehicle registered a wheel speed several km/h higher than on the right. The balance of the car was also completely shifted by the error and the electronics no longer functioned as usual, which is why the ABS eventually failed. The fact that the differential reached its limit and later broke was also audible. It had to be replaced after qualifying.
Nevertheless, it is impressive that despite the problem in qualifying, Thiim only lost 0.773 seconds to Thomas Preining's pole time - and above all was 0.124 seconds faster than teammate Nicolas Baert. "Nicki did a really good job with the problem - normally you could just stop right there," says Schuhbauer.
Ex-champion Gotz: "It cannot only be Pirelli's fault"
But how could Pirelli make such a mistake? And should the team have realized something was wrong? "It cannot only be Pirelli's fault," says former DTM champion Maximilian Gotz at ran.de. "The mechanics have the tires in their hands. They have to see that something is not right." One must "also hold the team accountable to check everything so that this does not happen."
The teams hand over their four rims to Pirelli at the track and pick them up later with tires mounted. While these are fitted with a barcode and registered in the system, it is not apparent from this whether they are front or rear tires.
Theoretically, the crew could have noticed visually that the tire and the rim did not match, but according to Schuhbauer, the error was "unfortunately not ours." Nevertheless, he knows that Pirelli did not act with intent either. "We are all human, it can happen," says the former SSR Performance team boss.
New set of tires as compensation for Aston Martin squad
Due to the unfortunate faux pas, the Comtoyou team was allowed to replace all four tires that were used in qualifying and were no longer in good condition with a completely new set before the race. The team submitted a request, which was approved by the technical delegate.
Thanks to a good strategy, Thiim, who was allowed to start from 18th on the grid due to Ben Dorr's grid penalty, managed to move up to 13th place. "The crew put on the best pit stop of the day," he says, referring to the tire changes, which were completed in 6.2 and 6.1 seconds respectively. "I just love this crew."
In the overall standings, the mid-season champion has lost the lead due to Maro Engel's two podium finishes and is now the first pursuer, 21 points behind the Winward Mercedes driver.
