Why Christian Klien has not competed in the DTM so far

At some point Jaguar and Red Bull Grand Prix racing driver Klien will take part in three of the eight DTM races this year in a McLaren 720S GT3, which is used by JP Motorsport. The expansion to a complete seasonal program in 2022 is planned.

Klien has competed in a variety of championships since competing the last three of its 51 Grand Prix races with Hispania Racing in 2010, trying everything from single-seaters and touring cars to LMP1 prototypes.

This included two games at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in which he had previously stood on the overall podium with Peugeot, selected Supercars Enduro events, including Bathurst, a one-off appearance in the SUPER GT flagship Suzuka 1000km and a third place in the Overall ranking of the European Le Mans Series 2015.

In recent times he has driven almost exclusively in GT3 categories in Europe and was second in the Pro-Am class of the International GT Open with JP Motorsport last year.

However, the Austrian driver said that the DTM was never an option for him in the class 1 era of the championship, as he felt that the entry barriers for a non-works driver were too high to overcome.

“The DTM was never really on my radar,” said Klien of Motorsport.com’s sister title Motorsport-Total.com. “That was for the following reason: either you are a works driver for BMW, Mercedes or Audi, or you have a lot of money and are buying into a private team.

“All manufacturers have endless factory drivers. There were not only the DTM drivers, but also the GT3 drivers who all wanted to drive in the DTM. So you had to be close to a factory to be able to drive in the DTM at some point. “

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Photo by: SRO

Klien admitted that he had a brief discussion with WRT when the Belgian team fielded two Audi RS5 DTMs for customers in 2019, but decided not to continue the talks as he believed the price was one million euros is too high for someone in his experience.

“I was interested because I know [WRT team boss] Vincent Vosse from the GT3 scene. And that’s how we started talking on the racetrack, ”said Klien.

“Then he explained to me what the bill looked like – for him too. Then it quickly became clear that you needed a sponsor to finance the whole thing – and I didn’t have one.

“The whole project with two cars costs six million euros. He’s getting three million from Audi and has to set up three million himself. Even as a professional driver, you have to bring a million with you.”