The top 10 DTM drivers of 2013

The 2013 DTM was a strange one in many ways. For every outstanding performance or action-packed weekend there was a controversy, or some other kind of disquiet rearing its ugly head.

Few drivers managed to deliver anything resembling consistency in its traditional sense. This was not down to any lack of quality on their part, or on that of their teams, but simply an indication of just how hotly contested the 2013 season was.

Where else could a loss of just 0.2s of relative pace from one weekend to the next be the difference between qualifying on the second row, or not even making it into the top 10?

Some, however, did cope with the ups and down better than others. Most notable among these was Mike Rockenfeller, who finally, after seven years of trying, fought off allcomers to add the DTM title to his huge collection of sportscar accolades.

1 Mike Rockenfeller
Phoenix Racing Audi RS5
Championship: 1st (142 points)
Wins: 2
Poles: 2
Fastest laps: 1

A deserving champion, albeit one who only just beats title rival Augusto Farfus to the number-one spot on AUTOSPORT's list.

Key to Rockenfeller's success (and his number-one status) was his ability to turn a seemingly impossible situation into a top result on raceday. This was most apparent at the Norisring, where a back-of-the-grid start became a fifth-placed finish after an inspired decision by Ernst Moser's Phoenix team to stop twice in quick succession under safety-car conditions, and a brilliantly consistent stint by Rockenfeller on option Hankook tyres.

The Nurburgring race was the scene of another strategy blinder as Rockenfeller - last after a first-corner off - was convinced to pit for wet rubber before the pit window had opened in anticipation of an imminent deluge, and managed to finish fourth, despite making one more stop than his rivals.

He didn't quite match Farfus for pace during the latter stages of the year, but didn't need to either as his eyes were on piling on the points in anticipation of the big prize.

2 Augusto Farfus
RBM BMW M3
Championship: 2nd (116)
Wins: 3
Poles: 1
FLs: 1

Not many would have expected the Brazilian and Bart Mampaey's RBM team to feature as BMW's primary title threat, but more than a few attitudes changed after his victory at the Hockenheim season opener.

Having overhauled Bruno Spengler during the Canadian's luckless mid-season run to become BMW's main title threat, Farfus found himself fighting the Audi army on his own in the three races at which assistance could have been crucial, but took superb wins at both Oschersleben and Zandvoort to cap off an impressive year.

Farfus made it into Q4 on seven occasions in 2013 - more than anybody else, including the man with the best Saturday average of all, Spengler - but also failed to score four times. Most heartbreaking was an easy second place at Brands Hatch going to pot when his gearbox failed at two-thirds distance.

3 Gary Paffett
HWA Mercedes C-coupe
Championship: 6th (69)
Wins: 1
Poles: 0
FLs: 1

Nothing much seems to have gone right for Paffett since the midway point of 2012, and it got worse for the former champion as this year's campaign wore on.

Victory at Lausitz - on a weekend in which the Mercedes C-coupe excelled - was the high point. But at least 30 points - and third in the championship - went begging thanks to a comedy of errors, most of which the driver could take no blame for.

Three collisions with Edoardo Mortara in two late-race laps cost him a certain podium at the Norisring, and a third place on the road at Brands Hatch was then removed before the podium procedure had even started due to the driver having not slowed down sufficiently under yellow flags.

There was an especially harsh drivethrough at Spielberg for pushing Martin Tomczyk off-track (despite contact not actually being made) and the less said about HWA's decision to fit slick tyres to his car during the Nurburgring typhoon, the better.

As the year drew on and track characteristics and temperatures turned Mercedes' inability to generate grip in its rear Hankooks when in qualifying mode from an inconvenience into something verging on cataclysmic, his quality shone through.

Always the three-pointed star's lead driver when things got tough, Paffett showed young pretenders Robert Wickens, Roberto Merhi and Christian Vietoris a clean pair of heels to score small points when they did not.

4 Robert Wickens
HWA Mercedes C-coupe
Championship: 5th (70)
Wins: 1
Poles: 1
FLs: 0

AUTOSPORT predicted that the Canadian was 'one to watch' at the start of the year and so it proved as the ex-Formula Renault 3.5 champion experienced a breakthrough year.

The undoubted highlight was his maiden victory at the Nurburgring, featuring the overtaking move of the season as he went around the outside of Adrien Tambay and Farfus in one fell swoop at Turn 2, just three corners after nosing inside Miguel Molina's Audi.

But there were plenty of others, too. Pole at the Norisring on a weekend when the Audis looked set to dominate, and second in the race as the hot conditions played to the strengths of the Mercedes.

Unlike team-mate Paffett, however, he was unable to get the most out of the car when the qualifying issues set in towards the end of the season. Experience will soon sort that out.

5 Mattias Ekstrom
Abt Sportsline Audi RS5
Championship: 7th (68)
Wins: 0
Poles: 0
FLs: 0

Zero wins, zero pole positions and zero fastest laps doesn't sound too special, but to just look at statistics would be to ignore the essence of the Swede's season.

Reinvigorated after hooking up with new engineer Florian Modlinger, Eki was back to his very best by mid-season, as his performances at the Norisring and Moscow proved.

In the former he moved from ninth to second in just 22 laps of the four-turn circuit and later ran away at the front, only to have his win taken away for parc ferme infringement involving his dad and a bottle of water that even the DMSB agreed had no bearing on the race result.

In Russia he clearly had the legs of Rockenfeller on race pace, but slackened his efforts between his two mandatory tyre changes to ensure he finished behind his Audi stablemate and supported the German's title challenge.

Still not convinced? Just find the final lap of the Zandvoort race on YouTube. Yes, his ability to use his late-race pace on option rubber was aided hugely by the appearance of the safety car to bunch up the field, but even so, the man went from 14th to fourth in just 16 laps, and made up three places alone on the last tour.

If he sticks around - and he is currently a free agent - expect a big title challenge next year.

6 Marco Wittmann
MTEK BMW M3
Championship: 8th (49)
Wins: 0
Poles: 1
FLs: 2

When Marco Wittmann failed to win the 2011 F3 Euro Series with reigning champion team Signature, it was everybody's fault bar his own - at least, that was the story he told.

That attitude was never going to get him far, and so it was hugely refreshing to watch the German grow up during a season as BMW DTM test driver in 2012 in which he gained serious praise from within the manufacturer's motorsport division.

He put everything he learned to terrific use this year. BMW's third best qualifier was the lead driver for the new MTEK team for much of the year, his first podium finish at Spielberg coming after a storming drive and his maiden pole at Zandvoort arguably standing out as the single-lap performance of the whole season.

Impressive too was the mature manner in which he handled deliberately being put on what most instantly spotted as the wrong tyre strategy for the race as BMW pulled out all the stops to get Farfus to the front.

Team-mate Timo Glock had got his act together by the end of the season, and it will be hugely interesting to see what effect this will have on Wittmann's thought process going forwards.

7 Bruno Spengler
Schnitzer Motorsport BMW M3
Championship: 3rd (82)
Wins: 1
Poles: 2
FLs: 0

Of everyone competing in the DTM, Spengler's season is perhaps one of the hardest to assess. The Canadian looked to be doing exactly what was needed to defend his title early on, by racking up big points everywhere and winning in Austria.

Just two points behind Rockenfeller at the year's mid point, back-to-back assaults by Audis (Miguel Molina at Moscow and Filipe Albuquerque at the Nurburgring) not only caused him to drop down the order, but also damaged his car to the extent that a fightback was impossible.

Only six of the championship's 22 drivers scored fewer points than Spengler during the second half of the year - and you had to go down to his own team-mate Dirk Werner in 13th in the standings before you found one who'd fared worse.

The reasons for it were clear for all to see though, and while some paddock experts reported that Spengler's head had dropped, there was little evidence of this. His qualifying average was the best in the DTM - 0.1 spots ahead even of Farfus on average - and he did rebound with a podium finish at the Hockenheim finale to head into the winter break with at least some cause for optimism.

8 Daniel Juncadella
RSC Mucke Mercedes C-coupe
Championship: 16th (21)
Wins: 0
Pole: 0
FLs: 0

While Wittmann had the luxury of a car that was usually somewhere in the ballpark at every race, his former F3 rival Daniel Juncadella was not so lucky. Add to that the fact that his RSC Mucke team-mate Pascal Wehrlein was also embarking on his rookie DTM campaign (and didn't even get the Spaniard's level of testing due to Ralf Schumacher's very late pre-season decision to retire) and you had the makings of a very tough maiden season out of single-seaters.

Fortunately Juncadella is a thinking driver, although that was almost to his detriment mid-season as he questioned his own focus following a terrible 15th place in Lausitz qualifying.

The following day was revelatory as he stormed through to finish sixth, the seeds of such a performance having been sewn with a similar - if ultimately pointless - drive at Spielberg a few weeks earlier.

Although Wehrlein qualified on average 1.7 places higher, it was Juncadella who was the smarter strategic operator and usually kept himself out of trouble more often. His divebomb on Ekstrom while they fought over second at the Hockenheim finale - for which he was penalised - was massively out of character and could have been avoided with a calming radio message that at least told him what position he was running in.

9 Edoardo Mortara
Team Rosberg Audi RS5
Championship: 21st (3)
Wins: 0
Poles: 0
FLs: 0

This may seem like too high a ranking for a man who finished 21st in the championship and scored only a pair of top-10 finishes, but delve below the results sheet and a different picture emerges.

The only man to win a DTM race in an Audi in 2012 didn't simply become a bad driver overnight. Three early-season Q4 appearances should have led to several podiums, but damage sustained in a wheel-banging incident with Wittmann at Spielberg (from which the BMW man escaped unscathed) robbed him once and an ill-tempered closing-stages fight at the Norisring - which he accepted responsibility for - put the boot in again.

Any attempt to make right on a disappointing year vanished later on as the Rosberg team lost its way on set-up.

The Italian best summed it up at the Hockenheim finale when asked by AUTOSPORT to talk about his highlight of the year. "Overall," he said, "winning GT at the Daytona 24 Hours. DTM? Now, because my nightmare year is finally over."

10 Christian Vietoris
HWA Mercedes C-coupe
Championship: 4th (77)
Wins: 0
Poles: 1
FLs: 2

First the positives. Vietoris raised his game in 2013, ending up as the highest-placed Mercedes driver in the championship and securing his maiden pole position at Lausitz.

But when HWA's performances tailed off towards the end of the year, the German simply could not cope with the situation and qualified no higher than 16th for any of the final three races - considerably worse than either Paffett or Wickens.

Even when things were going well, you'd have been hard-pushed to notice the existence of the Silver C-coupe gradually moving up through the field as it was largely incidents that befell other drivers, rather than his own searing speed, that led to Vietoris's four podium finishes.

THE REST

For a second year in a row Adrien Tambay just misses out on the top 10, and this is largely due to his failure to improve his qualifying pace and leave himself at the mercy of Audi team tactics in the majority of the races.

The Frenchman did produce four straight points finishes in the second half of the year (a run only three other drivers beat) and proved just how long you could carry a single set of option tyres in Russia with a 56-lap opening stint in which he maintained his pace well.

Fellow Abt man Timo Scheider delivered a surprise pole at the Hockenheim opener, largely down to being the last man on track in drying conditions in both Q3 and Q4, and could well have beaten Farfus to victory at Zandvoort - scene of his 2012 pole - had he not been following orders to act as a rear gunner for Rockenfeller.

Audi new boy Jamie Green was another to fall foul of Audi's team tactics, this time after inheriting pole at Oschersleben. While his pace was blatantly in excess of what Farfus was capable of, he fell back to third by the end of the opening round of tyre changes to ensure he finished behind Rockenfeller. It's a moot point now, but Audi's strange tactic actually cost its champion more points to Farfus (seven) than he would have if Green had taken victory (three).

Priaulx had a poor season © XPB

Like Rosberg team-mate Mortara, Albuquerque suffered from the lack of a consistent set-up in race conditions. It was a similar situation for Molina, but the Phoenix man did his hopes of staying with Audi next year no harm with a string of much-improved qualifying and race performances during the second half of the year.

Andy Priaulx suffered another terrible year, the Briton having barely any opportunity to test his RMG BMW M3. More often than not he matched the pace of team leader Martin Tomczyk - a champion only two years ago - and after finally deciding to revert to his preferred pre-DTM style of right-foot braking, he bounced back brilliantly to make Q4 for the first time at Hockenheim and then finish sixth in the race.

Tomczyk's year was equally fraught as he completed a 10-race streak without a points finish - a personal record. Worst of all was the loss of all his Brands Hatch qualifying times after his polesitting M3 failed a post-session weight check that led to one of many season clashes with Roberto Merhi the following day.

Timo Glock spent most of the year getting beaten by fellow rookie Wittmann at the new MTEK team - even on the day he took his maiden podium finish in Austria with a terrific drive from 14th on the grid. Come the end of the season, he had made up for his lack of testing mileage compared with Wittmann and capped off his year with a brilliant and popular win at a wet Hockenheim.

Joey Hand, in his second year of DTM competition, blew hot and cold as he again dovetailed his year with sportscar commitments in North America. Five points finishes were an indication of his improved consistency on racedays, although his average qualifying position was 1.4 positions worse than in 2012.

Glock won the season finale © XPB

Werner was another who was brilliant one day and anonymous the next, the Schnitzer man rarely a match for Spengler and failing to match his 2012 points haul or qualifying average.

His drive from the back to second at the Hockenheim opener was inspired, but owed much to BMW gambling on an extra-long opening stint on what was the debut race for the series' 'option' tyres.

Mercedes' Pascal Wehrlein usually outperformed RSC Mucke team-mate Juncadella in qualifying, but lost out during the early part of the year as Mercedes tended to use him as a guinea pig for gauging how far it could stretch its tyre mileage on its leading cars.

HWA man Merhi spent most of the year failing to get off the back row thanks to overdoing it in qualifying, but his race pace was usually better than most of the midfield runners. He staged an incredible fightback at the wet Hockenheim finale to finish second, despite an early jumped-start penalty, and might have beaten Glock too had it not been for the fitting of an incorrectly pressured set of tyres during his middle stint.