Veteran BMW customer team Schubert Motorsport will field three M4 GT3s in the 2024 DTM championship with a stacked roster of works drivers that all have DTM championships on their resumes. Sheldon van der Linde won the DTM championship in 2022 with Schubert and will be back for a third straight year with the team. He will be joined by René Rast and Marco Wittmann. Rast (who also drove for Schubert in 2023) won the DTM championship in 2017, 2019 and 2020 with Audi. Wittmann won the DTM championship with BMW in 2014 and 2016.
The consolidation of the DTM program into one team is due to the demise of the Project 1 Motorsport team, who fielded an M4 GT3 for Wittmann in DTM in 2023 and campaigned the M4 GT3 in the Asian Le Mans Series earlier this year. Project 1 has filed for bankruptcy after 30 years in competition and was known primarily for racing Porsches before moving to BMW last year. Most notably, they won the FIA WEC GTE Am title in 2018-2019 with Porsche and had a class win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2019.
With the trio of championship-winning drivers, BMW is set to be very competitive in DTM this year. “Three champions united in a championship team–we are going into the 2024 DTM season with a very strong set-up,” said BMW M Motorsport Head of Customer Racing Björn Lellmann. “In this fiercely contested championship with seven brands and a starting field of top-class international drivers and teams, our goal is to have a clear say in the title fight this year as well. We have proved that the BMW M4 GT3 is a winning and championship worthy car, and the exceptional skills of our three BMW M works drivers as well as Schubert Motorsport are beyond question.”
The DTM season opens on the weekend of April 26th-28th at Oschersleben in Germany. —David Haueter
[Photos courtesy BMW, ADAC]