ASTON SOUAD EXITS DTM AFTER ONE YEAR
R-motorsport’s departure means there will be just two manufacturers on the grid
The R-motorsport Aston Martin team has pulled out of the DTM after a single season in the category.
R-motorsport joined the DTM at the start of 2019 with a quartet of Vantages, effectively taking the place vacated by Mercedes on the grid.
But the Swiss squad, which was given an exclusive licence by Aston Martin to develop the Dtm-spec Vantage, struggled to match the factory entries of German giants and series stalwarts Audi and BMW, and failed to score a single top-five finish all season.
R-motorsport is understood to have sold all of its cars to an anonymous buyer at the end of last year, and it later announced a split with engine builder HWA, with which it had also entered into a joint venture ahead of its foray into the DTM.
It reportedly entered talks to secure a customer engine supply from BMW, but R-motorsport has now announced that it will not contest the 2020 season.
“The reassessment of our motorsport programme showed that we want to set new priorities for the future and that the DTM engagement would not be appropriate for us anymore,” said team principal Florian Kamelger.
“What we have decided regarding our 2020 motorsport programme we will announce at a later stage.
“However, I’d like to take this opportunity to say thank you particularly to Gerhard Berger and the ITR, to [Audi and BMW bosses] Dieter Gass and to Jens Marquardt for the common engagement in DTM during our debut season.
“Especially BMW has been an extraordinarily helpful partner for us.”
R-motorsport’s withdrawal leaves just 14 cars on the 2020 DTM grid, unless BMW and Audi agree to field additional customer entries. Two privateer Audi RS5S are currently fielded by WRT.
It means that the DTM will feature just two manufacturers for the first time since 2011, the year before BMW joined the series.