NOVEMBER 9, 2006

Rossi tries a DTM Mercedes-Benz

The DTM Series is running short of star names at the moment with the departures of Jean Alesi and Heinz-Harald Frentzen. Olivier Panis is expected to turn up next year with Mercedes but there is still the need to get the racing into the mainstream media and one way of doing that might be to attract motorcycle racer Valentino Rossi. He has been considering getting out of bikes for some time but did not do enough to convince Ferrari that he is an F1 driver of the future. A career in DTM, therefore, might be just the thing for the 27-year-old Italian, who has won everything there is to win on two wheels. Thus it was that Rossi was out on Thursday in Hockenheim at the wheel of an ex-Mika Hakkinen DTM Mercedes. Rossi said that the AMG Mercedes C-Class racer was an impressive piece of machinery and that he might one day decide to go racing with a touring car around him.

No doubt this brought smiles to the faces of the Mercedes-Benz folk present.