Hubert Haupt’s #DTM champions’ team takes on the title defence project

The title defence project has started. Mercedes-AMG Team HRT, the team of DTM champion Maximilian Götz, is one of the first teams to have submitted its entry for the 2022 DTM. The outfit of Hubert Haupt from Münich, based at the Nürburgring, intends to run at least two Mercedes-AMGs. While the drivers have yet to be announced, HRT gave four young drivers the opportunity to test a DTM race car on Wednesday and Thursday this week, including David Schumacher, the son of ex-Formula 1 and DTM driver Ralf Schumacher.

Next to David Schumacher, who scored his maiden win in the FIA Formula 3 Championship in the past season, German Formula 2 drivers David Beckmann and Lirim Zendeli and British Formula 2 driver Jake Hughes also got to drive the Mercedes during Mercedes-AMG’s DTM Young Driver Test at the Paul Ricard Grand Prix circuit in Le Castellet in the south of France. “We have two eventful and productive days of testing behind us. The four drivers have generally really impressed us and it is nice to see that talents like them are interested in our programmes,” Ulrich Fritz, managing director of the Haupt Racing Team, gave a positive attestation for the four young drivers.

David Schumacher was also happy after his test in the GT race car from DTM: “I got a very good impression of how the car feels and handles. It was great fun,” the 20-year-old said. “I have learned a lot, particularly from the long run. Personally, I managed to familiarise myself with the car a little. Generally speaking, I am very happy.”

Entrepreneur and racing driver Hubert Haupt only founded Haupt Racing Team in the summer of 2020. “Currently, we are preparing meticulously for the start of the 2022 season,” Ulrich Fritz says. For the continuation of its DTM programme in the 2022 season, the team is firmly envisaging the successful title defence.

In the 2021 DTM, German Maximilian Götz and Vincent Abril, who is racing with a Monegasque licence in DTM, were driving HRT’s two Mercedes-AMGs. At the Nürburgring and in Hockenheim, team owner Hubert Haupt drove a third car, making his comeback in DTM, having already raced in the long-standing series as an Audi works driver in 1991 and 1992 as well as with Opel in 2001. While 26-year-old Vincent Abril concluded the season 14th in the final standings with 34 points, “Maxi” Götz racked up three wins and eight further podium finishes and a total of 230 points. In his home round at the Norisring, the 35-year-old from Uffenheim was crowned as the 2021 DTM champion, delivering the first major title win for HRT.