Another spectacular new entry for DTM: the team run by two-time world endurance champion and Le Mans winner Timo Bernhard is entering a Porsche 911 GT3 R for the long-standing series in the 2022 DTM. With 23-year-old Porsche works driver Thomas Preining from Austria, the driver has already been confirmed as well. Moreover, KÜS Team Bernhard that has its base in Landstuhl in the German Palatinate region, will also be campaigning a pair of Porsche Cayman RS Clubsports in the young talent series DTM Trophy.
After SSR Performance with a two-car entry, KÜS Team Bernhard is the second Porsche team to submit its entry for the upcoming DTM season and already the third new team next to Grasser Racing Team that will be running four Lamborghinis. The 2022 DTM is getting its new season underway at Portimão in Portugal from 29 April-1 May.
In 2010, Timo Bernhard and his father Rüdiger founded KÜS Team Bernhard that initially was involved in rallying and has been competing in circuit racing from 2016 onwards as well. With the legendary 911, the team racked up numerous race wins and podium results. “This is a fully new challenge,” Timo Bernhard says about his DTM entry. “I am very proud of being allowed to announce our new top-notch programme for the 2022 season. We will be racing in DTM with a Porsche 911 GT3 R. I think that after six years in ADAC GT Masters, we are well prepared for it. With our driver Thomas Preining, we have an important constant factor in our team. I know about his qualities and I am very happy that he is part of our programme.”
The son of a successful motorcycle racer, 23-year-old Thomas Preining from Linz in Austria, won the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland title in 2017 and has since been contracted by Porsche as a works driver. “I am super excited and motivated for the DTM next year. Since I learned about this, I have been working avidly every day. After all, I want to be prepared for this season in the best possible way in order to get the project off to a good start right away. I have full confidence in the team and everyone involved. I think that we should be definitely taken into account and that we are able to achieve something,” says Preining, who already participated with KÜS Team Bernhard in other race series in 2021 and who will be racing with starting number 24 in DTM.
“This will be a very exciting season in DTM, I am firmly convinced about that,” says Frederic Elsner, director event & operations of the DTM organisation ITR. “With Timo Bernhard’s team as well as SSR Performance and Grasser Racing, we already have three new teams that, with their great achievements in GT racing, will be putting in a strong performance in DTM as well and will be making the competition even more intense. The fans can look forward to a thrilling season, to new teams and, of course, also to Porsche as another full-time brand in DTM.”
KÜS Team Bernhard will be pulling double duty on the professional DTM platform. “Next to DTM, we will also be participating in the DTM Trophy with two new Porsche 718 Cayman RS Clubsports. After all, young driver support remains very important to us,” Timo Bernhard says. Frederic Elsner adds: “For the DTM Trophy, the involvement by KÜS Team Bernhard with two Porsches is an undisputed upgrade. The level in our young talent pool is increasing in the third year as well. It will again be exciting to watch the way in which young talents are presenting themselves in this demanding competition to put themselves in place for graduation to DTM. And of course, we are very happy that more and more teams acknowledge and use the potential of the DTM platform.” With its early entry for both race series, Timo Bernhard’s team is benefitting from an incentive by ITR to combine participation in DTM with participation in DTM Trophy and therefore only having to pay the early-bird fee for the DTM Trophy cars. The DTM Trophy for which former DTM champion Martin Tomczyk will be in charge as the series’ manager in future, is getting its 2022 season underway at DEKRA Lausitzring Turn 1 from 20-22 May.
Source. DTM
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