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Originally Posted by bella
bert - fair point about the legacy drivers. though maybe you could argue that if they've not (been allowed to?) saved the world and won the title by now then perhaps they'd be better off farmed out to some of the sportscar projects as a change of scenery. a couple of them really make you think "yes, but why?".
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To some extent the drivers have been involved in other projects as well as DTM (particularly Audi) although Rockenfeller has done better in the DTM since dropping the additional commitments. Priaulx and Werner have both gone to sportcars this year from DTM so BMW are shuffling the pack a bit too. Ekstrom has done a bit of rallying and rallycross on the side (carrying his Red Bull sponsorship with him), Paffet obviously has the McLaren simulator stuff to keep him busy (and presumably he wouldn't have got that gig with Mercedes support).
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.