Not sure if an early Johnny Checotto was initially fast. Some drivers need time to develop. Or his V8 Supercars visit becomes compareable to Michael Schumacher's Superbike campaign. Let's wait and see.
EDIT: Ralf Schumacher just retired, ending his motorsport career. Pascal Wehrlein gets his ride.
He is former champion of ADAC Formel Masters, which is not bad at all. Also 2nd place in Euro F3 last year. So far so good. His DTM switch is bit worrying, but he is young enough to do any kind of things
Well as a matter of fact, DTM is a series for former Formula 3 drivers, who usually stay in the same company. Also I doubt it is about the money in this case. Mercedes saves more money by reducing its program to a 6 car one, after Heico Motorsport closed down.
Indeed. DTM might be slightly premature at 18, but so far the pedigree is here - you forgot to mention his 4th place at the Macau GP by the way, 2nd best rookie behind Alex Lynn.
Good gamble for Merc. The debuts might be a little rough, but all in all it's gonna be much more exiting than watching an half-bothered Ralf cruising around in midfield one more painful year, and probably more paying on long term, results wise. Probably about the best they could get with such short notice too. Keeping in mind that they might have wanted to have a German replacing Ralf for marketing reasons.
Even though many drivers picks must of course have been heavily influenced by the marketing departements, the brands involved in the DTM are not known for taking pay drivers aboard. If anyone has an obvious pay driver example in recent DTM history, I'd be interested to hear it.
Anyway, Merc's current line-up looks very fragile with only one proven contender(Gary Paffett), and alongside him a 3rd year driver(Vietoris), plus two 2nd year drivers(Wickens, Mehri), plus two rookies(Juncadella, Wehrlein), all pretty much learning the ropes. But well, that's another debate.
Oh my, Rob Huff is out of the qualification, starting from the last position in the both races. Definitely not beginning of the season you would like to have.
E: Oh my, both Ladas are out as well. Dudukalo had problems at braking into T1 and hitted Thompson hard.
E2: Thompson still moving, badly damaged though.
E3: Picture of aftermath
Honda still having a good amount of work on their plate apparently. Have the feeling that Yvan Muller could run away with the championship pretty quickly if they don't react fast enough.
E: Nice racing, I enjoyed it apart from Muller dominance. A huge shame about Michelisz, that guy was fast as hell last year and now gets lapped with shit Honda. :/
Well yeah the situation is quite awkward. He had brake issues in qualifying, before that the car didn't pass the FIA check because the JAS guys put thin windows into the car. So the hungarian guys had to work on it a lot. The car still doesn't have an official document, good luck modifying the setup without that. Also JAS keeps on replacing parts in the car... Race 1 was ok, but in Race2 the heating vent stopped working and he couldn't see out of the car due to vapor on the windshield. Kinda ridiculous, Honda better put their shit together.