After his DTM comeback at Oschersleben, ex-Formula 1 driver Timo Glock is not only at odds with his McLaren 720S GT3 Evo, which is currently being investigated in Woking for a fundamental vehicle problem, but also with the fairness of some of his rivals.
In Sunday's race, “it felt like everyone out there thought they had to drive totally kamikaze”, Glock grumbled to ProSieben after his retirement.
He said he had to “think carefully about what you can say on television” to avoid incurring a large fine. “I don’t know who did it, but I had eight punches in the car at some point.”
“We actually wanted to continue until the second pitstop to get the guys into a bit of a routine and only then stop the car, but it didn't make any sense,” said Glock, explaining why he parked the Dörr-McLaren early.
According to the team's technical director Robin Dorr, the front splitter was “so badly damaged” that it wanted to prevent “anything worse from happening”.
“Schuring drove halfway through my car in the last corner”
When asked by Autosport which events had upset him so much on Sunday, the 43-year-old Glock referred in particular to the early stages of the race. “I don't know what everyone was up to,” he said. “But that was a level of driving where I have one or two question marks.”
Glock's retirement was also caused by the collision with Landgraf Mercedes rookie Tom Kalender, who had to drive through the penalty lap zone three times (equivalent to a 15-second time penalty). Was it the incident with the youngest DTM driver of all time that upset Glock so much?
“I don't know,” replied Glock. “All I know is that Schuring drove halfway through my car at the last corner – and Scherer somewhere at the Hotel corner back there,” he said, alluding to rookies Morris Schuring in the Manthey Porsche and Fabio Scherer in the HRT Ford.
“And then at the end there was the... if it was the Mercedes, it was the Mercedes!” In the heat of the moment, he wasn't sure whether it was Kalender.
“There's a lot of bumping and jabbing going on”
It was mainly younger drivers who caused Glock trouble at Oschersleben. He also noticed that the second Ford Mustang driver, Arjun Maini, “jagged left and right and back and forth twice at the back during the start phase – and pulled into the corner, where I thought: “Okay, the car's going to break in the end, that's all you're going to get out of it!”
Glock claimed a decline in track behaviour that goes back to 2021, when the DTM switched from Class 1 prototypes to more robust GT3 cars, saying standards have “gone a long way in this direction” since then.
With the Class 1 cars, which built up more downforce via their aerodynamics, “it wasn't as extreme,” he said. “Everyone knew that it wouldn't do them any good because they would knock aero parts off and then nothing would work. But what's happening right now is a bit of a slugfest. In my eyes, it's just gone a bit too far.”
Glock to speak with race control
Glock is now calling for consequences. “In the end, the stewards and [race director] Sven Stoppe have to intervene accordingly, which I think [they did] in the race. Of course [the action] looks spectacular, but in the end we're all going to wreck our cars,” he said.
He had not yet spoken to Stoppe about the issue, but was planning to do so and “looking forward” to the next drivers’ meeting at the Lausitzring.
