Quote:
Originally Posted by Bcarr6
I stand corrected, Kelvin VDL stays at ABT alongside Feller.
Surprised hes doing that as a non Audi factory driver, I guess all the numerous factory offers he was going on about didnt come to anything.
Very close to the final grid now, just awaiting the GRT, Engstler and Project 1 (2nd seat) announcements...
I think Matt is probably right we will see 26 cars, GRT im sure will slim down from 3 to 2, Engstler maybe only one car...
Wouldnt be surprised to see GRT doing 2 cars in GTM, and 2 in DTM
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Kelvin stays with Abt simply because he's directly employed by them, doing also sub-drive for injured Robin Frijns in Formula E.
Can't help but feel that Abt will soon switch allegiance to Lamborghini across all GT programs (having DTM particularly in mind here) and that could perhaps pave way for van der Linde to become a Lambo factory driver...
As for Grasser they've already confirmed they're having two cars for DTM and two for GTWC. As much as Clemens Schmid is something of a certainty there, I really hope for a strong, competitive drive in the second car. If it is Schmid-Ineichen then not only Grasser can forget about wins and the championship fight but also about consistent points scoring.
My impression is something not necessarily good must've happened with Grasser in the background. While SSR is fielding three cars with high-profile factory drivers (except Deledda, not sure about his status although definitely he's not top-class) and they iterate their backing from Lamborghini, there's no mention of that for Grasser who not only lost Bortolotti but also Manuel Reuter after just a single season. This doesn't give a particularly bright outlook but maybe there are other, not necessarily so pessimistic reasons for this.