DTM – Maro Engel leaves the championship to concentrate on the Fe

At 32, the time has come to make choices Maro engel. The German, entered in the German Touring Car Championship, the DTM in 2017 after a first experience between 2008 and 2011, decided to abandon this competition in favor of Formula e and the GT3 program with Mercedes-AMG.

The person concerned explains this choice by duplicates in the Fe and DTM calendars. “It's a real shame that the two categories will overlap on several weekends in 2018. There is no easy solution, especially as I would have loved to participate in the last year of Mercedes-AMG in DTM (the Germanic brand will withdraw at the end of 2018)." The pill is, however, easy to swallow thanks to his victory in Moscow (Russia) last year. “I still had one goal to achieve after my first DTM period, which I managed to achieve in Moscow with this very first success. »

Engaged for the second consecutive season with Venturi in Formula e (with a best provisional result of 7th place in Hong Kong in December), Maro Engel will remain affiliated with the Étoile firm as GT3 driver. “I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Mercedes-AMG Grand Touring customer program. This is why I really wanted to continue in this category. » Maro Engel notably won the FIA ​​GT World Cup on the streets of Macau in 2015.

“Maro demonstrated that he was a very talented driver last year in the DTM,” explains Ulrich Fritz, head of the Mercedes-Benz DTM program. He is a driver who knows how to adapt to all types of cars, he is fast regardless of the car, so I know that he will find his way to victory again, whether in car or in GT. »