Ralf Schumacher will continue to race for Mercedes-Benz in the 2012 DTM season. Schumacher has been competing in the world’s most popular touring car championship since 2008, and next year will be his fifth in the series. This season saw him score his first two podium finishes – in the opening race at Hockenheim and DTM’s return race at the Austrian circuit of Spielberg.
MERCEDES GP PETRONAS Formula One drivers Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg unveiled the new DTM AMG Mercedes C-Coupé for the 2012 DTM season at the IAA in Frankfurt, alongside Dr. Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of the Board of Management at Daimler AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars Division, and Norbert Haug, Vice-President, Mercedes-Benz Motorsport.
The new DTM season begins on 1st May 2011 in Hockenheim
The two former Formula One drivers David Coulthard and Ralf Schumacher will once again be racing the AMG Mercedes C-Class for the 2011 season. They are the best-known members of the DTM Mercedes-Benz teams. Both drivers each have more than twenty years’ motor racing experience, and from a joint total of 426 Grand Prix starts they secured 19 Formula One wins between them. David Coulthard and Ralf Schumacher have quickly become fan-favourites in the DTM.
The watch and jewellery company THOMAS SABO headquartered in Lauf an der Pregnitz will become a partner of Mercedes-Benz in the DTM. 30 year-old Briton Gary Paffett, DTM champion in 2005, will enter his eighth DTM season at the wheel of the THOMAS SABO AMG Mercedes C-Class in 2011. Paffett started his DTM career with Mercedes-Benz in 2003 and graduated to a new C-Class for his second season. The Englishman has scored a total of 17 DTM victories out of 70 races (more than any other active DTM driver), finished three times as runner-up in the championship (2004, 2009 and 2010) and won the title in 2005. He has also been a test driver for the McLaren-Mercedes Formula One team since 2006.
The 2011 Formula One World Championship begins next weekend with Round One, the Australian Grand Prix, taking place in Melbourne on Sunday 27 March. Albert Park, a street circuit which uses the public roads surrounding the man-made lake south of Melbourne city centre, hosts one of the most atmospheric races on the calendar.