Emil Frey boss suspicious of DTM rivals illegally heating up tyres

Emil Frey Racing boss Jurg Flach has revealed suspicions that rival DTM teams are heating tyres without permission.

It is illegal in the German championship to use tyre blankets before a race with this seen as a move to save energy consumption and cost.

But in the wake of last weekend’s Norisring round, Flach has launched these suspicions after watching Manthey Porsche driver Thomas Preining win Sunday’s two-stop race.

Key to said victory was, per Flach, Preining’s “mega strong” outlap which enabled him to beat Emil Frey drivers Jack Aitken and Thierry Vermeulen who respectively finished second and third.

“It’s a bit controversial, because with some of them you have the feeling that they don’t have cold tyres,” Flach told Autosport.

“And this topic does stir up a bit of emotion, because we know that our car is actually not the worst in the warm-up. That’s why it makes you wonder why that is.”

The analysis shows that Preining unpacked the hammer after the second stop, as he drove a 1m17.444s in the undercut attempt against Aitken, who did a 1m20.764s.

Aitken’s time loss was also due to the fact that he had to defend directly against Preining. Preining also recorded the fastest stop in 6.7 seconds, while Aitken needed 8.2s.

Flach reckons his team would “regularly lose 1-1.5 seconds compared to the fastest” on an outlap, but it isn’t just compared to Manthey either.

In the weekend’s opening race on Saturday, Vermeulen left the pits ahead of Winward Mercedes driver Maro Engel but soon dropped behind him and Preining..

“He had no chance of holding them off – no chance,” added Flach. “What is this? How is it possible? Physically, you can’t do that just with the pressure.

“You produce grip through temperature – and you don’t have that after one corner. Engel pulled away from Thierry from the exit of Turn 1 to Turn 2 with cold tyres.”

Jack Aitken, Emil Frey Racing Ferrari Ferrari 296 GT3

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

This was also a matter of the top three driver press conference last weekend, as Preining was asked by Autosport about the secret of his strong outlap.

Yet as soon as he was, Aitken interjected “yes Thomas, please tell us”, before Vermeulen added “we are listening”.

“It was just full risk,” Preining then finally said. “We did a lot of data analysis from yesterday’s outlaps to maximise that.

“I knew it’s for the win, so I went all out. Normally I’m not pushing like this on a street track with cold tyres, because the risk you’re going to end up in the wall is quite high. Today, I believe it was worth the risk.”

Manthey is “very relaxed” about the concerns raised by Flach though, said its managing director Nicolas Raeder.

“We are working very closely on the details,” he added. “He is welcome to come to our pits and check the cars with an infrared imaging camera before the pitstops.”