VIDEO: WAS THIS DTM DRIVER REALLY INSTRUCTED TO BUMP HIS COMPETITION OUT THE WAY?

Did Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich really instruct driver Timo Scheider, “Schieb ihn raus!” (or “Push him out!”) over the radio during the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters race? Dr. Ullrich claims that he was on a different channel than Scheider, but the TV edit looks pretty bad.

Scheider’s Audi got stuck behind the two Mercedes cars of Pascal Wehrlein and Robert Wickens. After “Schieb ihn raus!” gets blurted out over one of Audi’s team radio channels, Scheider bumps Wickens in the rear, which sends him into the rear of Wehrlein. Both Mercs slide into the gravel. 

According to Autosport, Scheider claims that he never heard Ullrich. “I got the confirmation that there was a call after the race, when I checked the video, so I did not hear any comment while driving,” Scheider told Autosport. Scheider explained to Autosport that the tap was merely from racing hard, done on purpose. To be fair it was very wet and if cars braked earlier than he expected in front of him, too, that would explain it under any other circumstance.

Scheider was ultimately excluded from the Race 2 results for the bump. According to motorsport journalist Bianca Leppert, the Deutscher Motor Sport Bund (DTM’s governing body) decided that Scheider made the tap on purpose after looking at the data. The DMSB’s sport court will now examine the hotly debated radio message in further detail. Audi still contends that this disqualification was bunk, so we’ll see what the DMSB finds out in regards to Audi’s supposedly quite complicated team radio setup. 

Naturally, Head of Mercedes DTM Ulrich Fritz was not amused by the bump at all.