Porsche romped to a DTM championship treble in solely its second season within the class final 12 months, because it swept the drivers, groups and the producers’ titles with Thomas Preining and the Manthey EMA group.
The feat was significantly spectacular as Porsche confronted all three of its major German rivals, Audi, BMW and Mercedes, plus Italian supercar producers Ferrari and Lamborghini, in a six-way struggle for glory.
The consequence additionally marked a successful begin to Manthey EMA’s foray into the DTM, having joined the ADAC-run class in the beginning of 2023 to switch SSR Efficiency as Porsche’s major group.
However Manthey founder and marketing consultant Olaf Manthey doesn’t assume a repeat of its 2023 success is feasible this 12 months, as he hinted politics may play a job in figuring out the end result of the championship.
“I do not assume we’ll be allowed to do it once more,” the 69-year-old informed Motorsport.com’s sister title Motorsport-Whole.com. “It at all times needs to be effectively blended.
“That is the thought of the BoP [Balance of Performance], to deliver the completely different makes collectively so that you’ve a very good sporting present the place everybody can participate and that is the correct factor to do.
“Nevertheless, we now have to watch how issues develop over the course of the 12 months. After which we’ll should see the place we find yourself.”
Final 12 months, Porsche was represented by a complete of six automobiles within the DTM, as Manthey EMA, Crew Bernhard and Toksport WRT all entered a pair of 911 GT3 Rs for a mixture of manufacturing facility and non-factory drivers.
Nevertheless, following Toksport WRT’s withdrawal and Crew Bernhard’s determination to focus solely on one-make championships, Manthey EMA is left as the only real Porsche group within the 2024 DTM season.
Meaning there shall be simply two automobiles from Stuttgart model this 12 months, one for defending champion Preining and the opposite for Ayhancan Guven, who has moved throughout from Crew Benhard to switch Ford-bound Dennis Olsen.
Requested if Porsche faces a political drawback by having just one group and two automobiles within the class, Manthey mentioned: “A couple of different producers have a number of extra automobiles within the championship.
“And as it’s the similar in different championships with BoPs, I consider that you just need to combine it up effectively and that everybody has a flip [at winning].”
Manthey’s feedback comply with repeated allegations that Porsche acquired a beneficial BoP within the DTM final 12 months, particularly on the Hockenheim finale the place Preining gained each races to seal the title.
Particularly, former Components 1 and DTM driver Ralf Schumacher, whose son David raced for Winward Mercedes final 12 months, claimed Porsche was “higher off than it ought to have been” within the title decider.
However the Manthey founder refuted these allegations, saying: “Perhaps it’s best to go into the lap time evaluation, what we drove at what time and what the others drove at what time.
“Then you may come to a typical denominator comparatively shortly and may’t really make such statements for those who use your head, as a result of I do not actually assume it is sensible to simply toss something into the room like that.”
