How Timo Glock’s DTM comeback came about

Former BMW star Timo Glock has explained how he secured a return to the DTM this year after being out of action for the last three seasons.

The German has been recruited by Dorr Motorsport to lead its sophomore campaign in the DTM, where it will field a pair of McLaren 720S GT3 Evos.

Glock made several attempts to return to the series he called his home between 2013-21, following his departure from Formula 1, but only went as far as making one guest appearance at Imola in 2022 with Ceccato Motors.

But an impromptu trip to last year’s Hockenheim finale in October set things rolling, eventually leading to him getting the opportunity to replace the departing Clemens Schmid in Dorr’s DTM line-up this year.

“Chance played its part again. I was visiting my parents with my daughter at the weekend and I only realised three days beforehand that the DTM finale was at Hockenheim,” Glock told Autosport’s sister title Motorsport-Total.com.

“So I drove past my friend [and track’s managing director] Jochen Nerpel, was there for two hours and bumped into my former GP2 race engineer Richard Selwin on the grid. Selwin and I always stayed in touch and kept saying we needed to do something together.”

Glock had previously worked with Selwin during his title-winning season at iSport in GP2 (now Formula 2) in 2007.

In the last few years, Selwin has acted as an engineer for the Project 1 BMW team in both the DTM and the World Endurance Championship, gaining experience of running GT machinery.

Project 1 was supposed to run Dorr Motorsport’s new DTM programme last season, only to go bankrupt and force Dorr to set up its own operation. This also opened the door for Selwin to directly join Dorr’s team.

“I say: ‘Hey, what are you doing here?'” Glock recalled. “He replied: ‘I’m here for Rainer Dorr and I’m looking in the background at how the team is set up because we might want to do something for this [new] season’.

“Then he asked me: ‘Would you like to get behind the wheel again?’ I said: ‘Would I like to? Of course! I already spoke to them last year’.”

Glock failed to find Rainer Dorr on the Hockenheim grid, but was able to get hold of him in the days following the event.

Clemens Schmid, Dörr Motorsport McLaren 720S GT3 Evo

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

The five-time DTM race winner already knew the Dorr team owner, having previously spoken about joining his team for the 2024 season.

“I sent him a message two days later saying that if he wanted to talk again about working together, we could talk on the phone,” said Glock.

“We did that – and then things went pretty quickly. We both had clear ideas about the topic – he had his, I had mine.”

Following the conversation, Dorr organised a track day at Hockenheim at short notice to give Glock a chance to try out the McLaren 720S GT3.

“We made good use of the test day and at the end he said: ‘We need someone who has experience’. And for me it was crucial that Richard Selwin was on board,” said Glock.

The two parties quickly came to an agreement, with the deal being made public before Christmas in December. 

This will be Glock’s first full programme since he raced in the Italian GT series in 2022. He was dropped from BMW’s factory roster at the end of the season and has only completed in a handful of races since then, with a Nurburgring 24 Hour appearance alongside two-time DTM champion Timo Scheider, Le Mans 24 Hours class winner Jeroen Bleekemolen and Briton Peter Cate being the highlight.