DTM curiosity: Did Glock of all people help teammate Ben Dorr to victory?
· Yahoo Sports
Does the McLaren team Dorr Motorsport owe its first DTM victory to none other than the stranded Timo Glock? The former Formula 1 pilot parked his McLaren on the track during the Saturday race at the Lausitzring in lap eleven due to a technical defect, which led to a controversial Full-Course-Yellow phase. This gave Glock's teammate Ben Dorr a decisive advantage - and later the win.
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Ben Dorr, who gambled on slicks despite the rain after starting from tenth on the grid, was in ninth place before the pit stops - 6.6 seconds behind leader Nicki Thiim, who had also opted for slicks. And the McLaren team's next gamble was also about to pay off.
While leader Thiim reacted to the stops of pursuer Lucas Auer, who wanted to get rid of his rain tires, Ben Dorr waited one lap longer. At that point, his team was speculating that race control would neutralize the race because of Glock's car and called the youngster in at the end of lap 13.
Full-Course-Yellow gained Ben Dorr around 25 seconds
The timing could not have been better. Before the stop, Dorr was 1.485 seconds behind Abt-Lamborghini driver Marco Mapelli and 0.785 seconds behind Marco Wittmann in third, but 0.961 ahead of Ricardo Feller. Race director Sven Stoppe called out FCY with a ten-second countdown - and immediately after the McLaren driver crossed the crucial first Safety Car line, the pit lane was closed.
Just how close it was is shown by the statement from Wittmann, who was the only one of the quartet not to pit and therefore did not benefit: "In the end, we would have made it too, of course, as Ben and Ricardo had made it. But for us, it was a bit too risky. We are talking about two seconds."
Before that, Stoppe had deliberately waited for Thiim, Thierry Vermeulen, and Maximilian Paul to leave the pits in time so they would not have an advantage. However, due to the ten-second countdown before the FCY, the next trio slipped into the pit entry. Ben Dorr's stop almost wouldn't have counted as a mandatory stop.
As it turned out, he, like Mapelli and Feller, had an advantage of around 25 seconds over Thiim and company because, at 60 km/h in the pit lane, he was only slightly slower than the drivers on track who had to maintain 80 km/h.
Dropped back during the stop: Dorr overtook Feller after FCY
The Dorr mechanics worked quickly in 7.5 seconds, but were 0.8 seconds slower than Feller's often perfect Manthey crew, causing the McLaren driver to fall behind the Porsche. When the FCY was lifted, Dorr out-accelerated the Swiss driver on the start-finish straight and moved into second.
Ben Dorr, who had only recently achieved the first McLaren podium in DTM history at Zandvoort, finished second, 1.864 seconds behind Mapelli. When Mapelli and Feller were subsequently handed 15-second penalties for violating the speed limit during the FCY phase triggered by Glock, Ben Dorr was declared the winner over four hours later.
Ben Dörr erhält seinen ersten DTM-Siegerpokal erst mit Verspätung
Ben Dörr erhält seinen ersten DTM-Siegerpokal erst mit VerspätungWhen did Dorr realize that a top result was possible? "Right after the pit stop," he says. "The three of us came out, and there was a 20-second gap behind us. It was clear then that the three of us would be on the podium. But everyone was similarly fast - and no one could overtake."
Why a comparison with Crashgate 2009 falls short
But why did Timo Glock not park his McLaren off the track, but on the left-hand edge of the circuit? For some, thoughts of Crashgate 2009 in Singapore were triggered, when Renault driver Nelson Piquet Jr. intentionally crashed into the wall, triggered a Safety Car, and made teammate Fernando Alonso - who had already completed his stop - the winner.
However, the situation is not comparable, as the Alonso move was planned, whereas with Dorr, at most, the fact that Glock did not park his car off the track plays a role. And the unlucky driver clarifies that as well.
"I came into the pits behind Kelvin van der Linde and went out on slicks, then the car shut off," Glock explained, visibly frustrated immediately after the race. Could he not have driven off the track? "No, the engine did nothing anymore, I couldn't shift either. I tried to do a power cycle, to restart again, but the car didn't react."
In contrast to his teammate, Glock had started on rain tires and had worked his way forward from the last grid spot to twelfth place, but then fell back to 18th on the drying track. According to the team, the reason for the retirement was a defective sensor cable to the data logger, which caused a short circuit.
Dorr: "Actually no chance of a podium"
Immediately after the race, Glock was not even aware that his misfortune was his teammate's luck. "No idea, I wasn't paying attention to that," he answers. Ben Dorr had to wait over four hours after the end of the race to find out that he was the winner and had written DTM history with the first McLaren triumph.
"The team manager came to me with a grin - then I already knew what he was going to tell me," Dorr revealed to ran.de, describing how he learned of the victory. "It's a bit of a shame that it only came out after the fact, but this is indescribable."
Before the race, he would not have thought such a result possible. "We are not that strong here this weekend. We already knew in qualifying that it would be difficult. Tenth and 21st places by Timo showed that we actually have no chance of a podium. But yes, with strategy and the weather, it was enough after all. We turned a bad weekend into a perfect one."
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