Quote:
Originally Posted by BertMk2
Is it wrong for a driver to see DTM as a career destination with no thoughts beyond that? I wouldn't have thought so - it's a professional championship and offers paid drives so it's an attractive option (especially as some of the drivers have reached a point where their single seater career has stalled - usually for lack of finance to take the next step). I think the DTM grid is generally well balanced - they've got less of the ex-F1 drivers at the moment so maybe the big draw for Joe Public is missing but on the whole the drivers are a good mix of series veterans and young guns.
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But what has DTM to offer? The championship doesn't have a big tradition nor a big standing. It means way more to win a NASCAR Sprint Cup championship or even the BTCC than winning the DTM title. The DTM also doesn't have a big race, unlike plenty of other series. In short: The DTM is just another artificial run-of-the-mill championship, which is as "special" as the millions of GT series we have around the world. Whereas a NASCAR champion becomes a hero to millions of Americans and some sort of mainstream sportsstar, a DTM championship doesn't earn you anything like that. For example, I really doubt that a lot of people would Mike Rockenfeller, if he was walking around in any random shopping center in a larger German city.
Also: Joe Everyman can't indeed be bothered to tune into DTM and that's a huge problem, so the DTM needs drivers Joe Everyman can relate to.