The format of the DTM until the end of this season dictated that the qualifying session took place in the morning of each of the two days of a round’s program, ending hours before the respective race. However, next year the two sessions could be separated by only a few minutes of interval.
The website Motorsport.com writes that a proposal is on the table to have the qualifying session at 1:00 PM and the race at 1:30 PM. The reason behind the desire for change is the low attendance of the current schedule.
And it’s not only the fans at the venue who view the idea favorably: Alexander Wilffing, sports director of ProSieben, which broadcasts the DTM on television in Germany and Austria, told Motorsport-Total.com: ‘I find the idea exciting from a television perspective, because we would have another live event in our programming. In addition, it would be a unique selling point for the DTM in motorsport. The exact implementation and what that would mean for the pre-race coverage would have to be analyzed in detail.’
But not only placing the qualifying session minutes before the race is being studied. Another possibility is to keep it at its usual time, but shorten it from 20 to ten minutes in duration.
