Haug, who had an extended involvement within the DTM by way of his position at Mercedes, is anxious concerning the budgets required to run a workforce within the sequence and feels in-season testing is having a detrimental impression on the standard of racing.
“The DTM continues to be far too costly,” he instructed Bild. “There may be far an excessive amount of testing. That is a sustainability situation! You’ll be able to’t preserve burning tyres and gasoline senselessly sooner or later.
“I’d abolish testing altogether, at most enable it on the simulator. System 1 would not take a look at in any respect and the DTM does limitless testing. So that may’t be the fitting method.
“With out testing, the races will probably be higher and extra thrilling. There are extra moments of shock, the drivers are extra decisive and extra within the highlight.”
Norbert Haug
Picture by: Alexander Trienitz
The DTM lifted its ban on personal testing when it switched from Class One to production-based GT3 vehicles in 2021. GT3 vehicles are utilized in all kinds of championships around the globe, largely with the identical Pirelli tyres at the moment used within the DTM, thus making it tough to manage any working outdoors of race weekends.
At current, the highest groups within the DTM maintain 10 personal take a look at days per season, largely at tracks which can be already on the calendar.
Haug, who continues to attend each DTM race after retiring from Mercedes, is unimpressed by the amount of cash groups spend to go testing yearly.
“In some {cases}, ten units of tyres – 40 tyres or much more – are used per automotive on a take a look at day for brief qualifying workouts,” he stated.
“A single day of testing prices 40,000 euros and extra. That has no future.”
Primarily based on Haug’s figures, a high workforce could possibly be spending a complete of 400,000 euros for 10 days of testing in a season. That might represent a significant quantity of a workforce’s funds, which is estimated at 1.4 million euros per automotive.
A revamp of the present weekend format is at the moment being evaluated by the ADAC, which might assist convey the prices down, following a gathering with the groups on the Purple Bull Ring final month.
This is able to see qualifying being moved simply earlier than the race and apply being moved to Saturday, thus shortening the size of a DTM assembly from three days to 2.
Haug feels the price of working a workforce within the DTM would fall down significantly if groups need to take much less tools to every race weekend.
“I’d additionally shorten the free apply periods,” he stated. “Whether or not a race has to final 60 or 50 minutes is a distinct matter.
“If much less tools is required, groups can journey to the tracks with two vehicles as an alternative of 4, and half the gasoline is used. The groups’ total budgets may drop by about 30 p.c that approach.”