If you ask the DTM drivers about their favorite track, the answer practically always is: “Zandvoort!” The 4.307-kilometer tarmac band in the dunes near Amsterdam is regarded as an old-school track that separates the wheat from the chaff. “There are many nice turns in great combinations, uphill and downhill sections, plus the track has a wonderful rhythm,” Mattias Ekström enthuses. “What I like best are the turns you practically enter blindly – that’s where you need a lot of confidence in your car.”
Nobody has won in the Dutch DTM round more frequently than the Swede from Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline. Ekström has mounted the top of the podium there an amazing four times, most recently in 2014. The Zandvoort record winner’s fondest memory is of the race in September 2002: “That’s when I managed to score my first ever victory in the DTM and my teammate Laurent Aiello became DTM Champion.”
It doesn’t take the other Audi drivers long to recall their sweetest Zandvoort experiences either. “In my case, obviously, it was winning the title in 2013,” says Mike Rockenfeller who, two years earlier, had celebrated his first DTM victory at Zandvoort as well. “I hope that, following the difficult start of the season, we’ll be able to continue these successes this year.”
Edoardo Mortara, Audi’s best-placed driver at the moment with just two points separating him from leader of the standings Marco Wittmann (BMW), is a great fan of the dune circuit too. His best moment so far? “My victory in 2012.”
Timo Scheider associates his first DTM pole position in the 2003 season with Zandvoort . Jamie Green, in 2004, won Sunday’s race in the then Formula 3 Euro Series and, as a result, secured the champion’s title early at Zandvoort.
Adrien Tambay, like Edoardo Mortara, likes to remember 2012: “That was my first year in the DTM and in fifth place I scored my first DTM points at Zandvoort – in difficult conditions because it suddenly started to rain in the race.”