High emotions in DRM revival: historic race cars excite during Imola premiere

The DTM’s rolling history book had an exciting premiere at Imola. The historic race cars from the Deutsche Rennsport-Meisterschaft (DRM) from the 1970s made an impressive comeback in the frame of the newly-created DTM Classic DRM Cup.

With the Ford Zakspeed Capri Turbo, a legendary car from this illustrious era scored a pair of impeccable wins, on Saturday with past master Peter Mücke behind the wheel and on Sunday with his son Stefan. Like on the previous day, Swiss Michael Kammermann brought his beautiful BMW M1 home in second place followed by Otto Rensing (GER) with the Porsche Carrera RSR. With Mücke and Rensing, that made it two ex-DTM drivers on the podium. Otto Rensing, a former BMW junior and a DTM driver with the BMW M3 in 1991, had caused the moment of the race on the opening lap. There was an unfortunate collision in the chicane between Rensing’s white-and-yellow Porsche, driven to fourth place by Michael Hess (GER) on the previous day, and the noble BMW M1 of Ronny Scheer (GER). The BMW got on two wheels and ex-motorcycle world championship rider Scheer was only just able to prevent it from rolling over. While Scheer was sidelined, Rensing was able to continue and worked his way up from seventh to third place. “It was a misunderstanding, I am really sorry about that,” Rensing said at the finish. It is the general atmosphere among the drivers, in the paddock and on track, that is making this revival of the DRM race cars to a special event. “It was an undisputed joy, a great track, a great car, a great atmosphere,” agreed Stefan Mücke, who is in charge of the classic department at the BWT Mücke Motorsport team. “The track is ra dream,” Kammermann said about the 4.909 kilometres long track with its long heritage. “The main opponent was the heat, but it was massive fun.” Following the late retirement by Hans-Ulrich Kainziger (GER) with the Porsche 3.0 RSR, Marco Wagner (GER) ended up fourth with the ex-Sauber BMW M1 Group 5 from Philipp Kennewell (GER) with the beautiful BMW 3.0 CSL. Son Max Kainzinger (GER) was classified tenth with the Porsche 914/6, Ute Schreiber (GER), the only female driver in the field, drove her Alfa Romeo 1750 GT-Am to 13th place. The DRM cars will assemble for round two of the DTM Classic DRM Cup at the Nürburgring from 26 till 28 August. In a fortnight already, the former DTM cars from the years 1984 until 2007 will stage excellent historic motorsport at the Norisring, the long-standing street circuit in Nuremberg.