DTM Cars Tear Up The Hungaroring - Literally

"Gabor Vajda (@Gabor_V)" (gaborvajda) 03/31/2014 at 14:57 • Filed to: dtm, hungaroring, f1, indycar

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DTM started their pre-season test at the Hungaroring earlier today. Winter has done some damage to the track (more like last year's winter), thus when the German monster cars were whooshing over cracks, they became potholes and the session was halted.

Europe's premier V8 thunder series is visiting (?) the Hungaroring later this year (for the record, it might not stay a V8-powered league !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ). I even eyed an outing to the event as it is happening quite close to my 30th birthday and since it just might be the first ever DTM race at said track in 26 years. With little or no possibility of its return to Hungary, because it is just a quick fix in the calendar and due what happened today.

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The surface of the track is in quite a poor condition, a major resurface was planned for this year and possibly a whole revamp of the circuit as well (quite unlikely, since it is residing in a natural basin for maximum visibility for the audience, it would require moving some hills from one place to the other). High-downforce and high-grip DTM came and tore the asphalt from the already starting, post-winter cracks, quite the same manner as at certain street courses in IndyCar.

This is quite interesting for a number of reasons, particularly in comparison with F1 and LMP2 cars. Both ran their respective races quite recently at the track, without any such problems. It could possibly mean DTM cars have a much higher level of downforce than LMP2 cars themselves (F1 is not even the same ballgame in this respect), but more likely, the Hankook-equipped series must be running - hell - sticky drag-tyres or so to achieve something like that at a permanent racetrack.

The track is being fixed at the moment as well and the test is planned to continue tomorrow.

UPDATE: some !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! from today's test.

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