Grasser appeal against disqualification: Verdict realistic before the DTM title final?

– The Lamborghini team Grasser has made good on its announcement and filed an appeal against the disqualification of Mirko Bortolotti in Oschersleben on time. This has been officially confirmed by the DSMB (German Motor Sport Federation). The team had 96 hours after the disqualification – that is, until today at 5 p.m. – to do so.

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The appeal must now be justified in writing within a week – then it will be definitively decided that the DMSB appeals court in Frankfurt will hold a hearing on whether the contested wheel bearing is legal or illegal. The date can only be set once the justification has been submitted.

But is a stalemate looming in the DTM title fight? “We will try to have the appeal heard before the season finale,” promises ADAC motorsport chief Thomas Voss in an interview with Motorsport-Total.com. “We would like to have a nice championship ceremony in Hockenheim.” The DMSB also expects a result within the next four weeks.

How the appeal case affects the title fight

In the DTM paddock, some doubted that the Grasser team would actually appeal the disqualification. However, team boss Gottfried Grasser believes he is right that the wheel bearing complied with the regulations.

The decision has a major impact on the title fight, because until the appeal hearing, the current result with Maro Engel as the winner is provisional. If Grasser succeeds with his appeal, DTM leader Engel, who leads Thomas Preining by one point with four races remaining, would lose five points.

Preining would lose four points, which would put the two of them tied at the top of the DTM standings, with the “Grello” driver as DTM leader due to his two wins. Third-placed Auer and fourth-placed Thiim would only lose one point.

If the appeal is successful: Engel with incorrect success ballast!

And there is another aspect: Engel had to carry 20 kilograms of success ballast for the win in the Saturday race at the Nürburgring. But if the Winward Mercedes driver were to have the win taken away retroactively and receive only 20 points instead of 25, then he should actually have only had to carry 10 kilograms at the Nürburgring.

By the way, Engel finished a strong sixth considering the weight – only 2.3 seconds behind third-placed Marco Wittmann.

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Would a protest be possible?

But could Mercedes-AMG file a protest against the race result on Saturday at the Nürburgring if Grasser is successful because the race was run under false conditions?

At Mercedes-AMG, the scenario that Engel could theoretically lose his Oschersleben win again was discussed on Friday, according to Thomas Jäger, who acts as sporting director for the DTM division.

“It’s a very strange situation, but given the rules, it’s not worth worrying about,” he explains. “If it comes to that, it would be unfortunate, but it was a reasonable race. Maro handled the weight very well. I would have thought it would be harder for him. So all good.”

Decisions covered by regulations

In fact, the regulations clearly specify what happens to success ballast in the event of a pending procedure. “If the result of a scoring run is provisional two hours before the start of the subsequent scoring run, the allocation of success ballast is made according to the provisional result at that time,” states Article 26.2 of the Sporting Regulations.

It is also clarified that Bortolotti had to carry 20 kilograms of success ballast despite the disqualification: “In the event of a pending appeal procedure, the appellant is assigned the success ballast according to his original placement. A protest against missing success ballast due to a result change after the above-mentioned time is not permitted.”

This is intended to prevent a driver from completing the race without success ballast after disqualification and only then filing an appeal.

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