Left front, right rear tire! Huge faux pas slows Thiim down

– Saturday at Oschersleben was already catastrophic for Nicki Thiim with starting position 18 and twelfth place at the finish, which caused great annoyance, but on Sunday things got even worse for the DTM half-time champion: Because in qualifying, in which the Aston Martin driver only finished 19th despite an adjusted Balance of Performance (BoP), tire manufacturer Pirelli made a serious mistake.

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“This morning, to put it professionally, Pirelli put the front tires on the rear rims – and vice versa,” Thiim reveals. “I’m glad it’s over, I have to be honest – a weekend completely to write off.”

Already on Saturday he “had no chance” – and today “Pirelli nicely messed up his whole day,” says the Dane, who still saved 13th place in the race, letting off steam. “Such a mistake simply cannot happen at this level. This naturally has major consequences for our championship. The team can’t do anything about it,” he says, defending his team on ran.de.

“The car is crooked”: Why nothing worked for Thiim anymore

Indeed, such a faux pas has massive effects on performance: Thiim had both rear tires mounted on the right and both front tires on the left in qualifying – and they also differ in dimensions. The rear tires are one centimeter wider and have two centimeters more diameter than the front tires.

“The problem is that the tires differ in height and rolling circumference. If I have rear tires on the front axle, my whole car no longer works. My rolling circumference is different, I have different wheel speeds,” explains Mario Schuhbauer, who acts as DTM Sporting Director for the Comtoyou team, on ran.de.

“At first I thought it was a puncture,” Thiim initially thought of a slow puncture. No wonder, as Schuhbauer clarifies: “The car is crooked.” And there are other problems: “The ABS system no longer works. My differential gets too hot because I have different speeds on the wheels.”

Different wheel speed triggered a chain reaction

Indeed, the sensors on the left side of the vehicle registered a wheel speed several km/h higher than on the right. The car’s balance was also completely shifted by the error, and the electronics no longer functioned as usual, which is why the ABS eventually failed. The differential reaching its limit and later breaking was also audibly noticeable. It had to be replaced after qualifying.

Nevertheless, it is impressive that Thiim, despite the problem, only lost 0.773 seconds to Thomas Preining’s pole time – and, above all, was 0.124 seconds faster than teammate Nicolas Baert. “Nicki did really well with the problem – normally you can just stop,” says Schuhbauer.

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Ex-champion Götz: “It can’t just be Pirelli’s fault”

But how could Pirelli make such a mistake? And should the team have recognized that something was wrong? “It can’t just be Pirelli’s fault,” says ex-DTM champion Maximilian Götz on ran.de. “The mechanics have the tires in their hands. They have to see that something isn’t right.” The team must “also be held accountable to check everything to prevent this from happening.”

The teams drop off their four rims with Pirelli at the racetrack and pick them up later with tires mounted. These are equipped with a barcode and registered in the system, but it is not apparent whether they are front tires or rear tires.

Theoretically, the crew could have noticed visually that the tire and rim didn’t match, but according to Schuhbauer, the error was “unfortunately not ours.” Nevertheless, he knows that Pirelli also didn’t act intentionally. “We are all human, it can happen,” says the former SSR Performance team boss.

New set of tires as compensation for Aston Martin crew

Because of the unfortunate faux pas, the Comtoyou team was allowed to replace all four tires used by Thiim in qualifying, which were no longer in good condition, with a completely new set before the race. The team submitted a request, which was approved by the Technical Delegate.

Thanks to a good strategy, Thiim, who was allowed to start from 18th place due to Ben Dörr’s grid penalty, managed to move up to 13th place. “The crew completed the best pit stops of the day,” he refers to the tire changes, which were completed in 6.2 and 6.1 seconds respectively. “I love this crew.”

In the overall standings, the half-time champion has lost the lead due to Maro Engel’s two podium finishes and is now the first pursuer, 21 points behind the Winward Mercedes driver.

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