F1 Fanatic

Bought my tickets today – Sunday general admission. It’ll be the first time I’ve been to Brands, and the first time I’ve ever seen the DTM machines up close and personal. To be honest, I’ve only ever watched one full race of DTM in my life, but it seemed like an interesting and different way to start off my season of attended events.

I’ll also hopefully be meeting up with a bunch of other F1 Fanatics I race with in our online racing club, in which we’re currently racing a season of DTM-esque action on Forza Motorsport 4. It seemed like a fitting way to first meet up.

Anyone else going? Been before? Or have any DTM or Brands Hatch hints tips or advice?

I do wish they’d use the full course and not the Indy circuit. Hopefully the addition of BMW will make for a more interesting race this year.

Well, I’d rather presume that they use the Indy circuit for safety reasons – the DTM cars might be just a bit too fast to use the full course safely.

A panorama of the view we had at Paddock Hill. Spot the group of F1 Fanatics on the far right! (click to enlarge)

@ajokay @robk23 Great stuff! Wish I could’ve gone.

As loud and impressive as the DTM cars were, the racing was pretty non-existent. You can see why each race has 2 mandatory pit-stops, because there certainly wasn’t any racing and overtaking happening on the track.

The real stars of the day were the NASCAR Euro RACECAR series machines. Officially sanctioned by NASCAR, loud, smelly (boy did they chuck out some fumes), close, exciting, wheel-to-wheel, fender-to-fender racing, adapted from the American NASCAR cars so that they’re able to take corners.

The Lotus Elise race wasn’t too shabby either.

@timkatz The NASCAR Euros were about 10 seconds a lap slower than the DTM cars. They had minimal downforce, treaded tyres, a 4-speed gearbox and were probably heavier. They were so much more entertaining though, slipping around through the corners and making lunging overtaking moves.

The Euro NASCARs were certainly a highlight of the event, there always seemed to be a car stranded on the inside of Graham Hill bend when they were done on track. I spotted a couple of notable drivers in the programme too (former WTCC and GP2 driver Javier Villa and former BTCC and WTCC driver Harry Vaulkhard).

I will agree that DTM produces little or no overtaking. If we compare DTM to the Superstars Series which raced at Donington Park the same weekend, the Superstars produced more excitement. Johan Kristoffersson climbed from last to second in the first race, something which I’m pretty much sure would not be replicated in the DTM.

With my own eyes and from one of the best seats in the house, I must’ve seen two or three overtakes in the DTM race, that was it.