Timo Scheider Celebrates His First Dtm Championship Victory

The German racecar driver Timo Scheider achieved just short time, before his 30th Birthday his first German Touring Car Masters Championship. The final race of the year took place at the Hockenheimring in Germany on October 26th 2008.

There were a total of 11 events this season and Scheider could ensure himself three victories and four runners-up spots. His most difficult opponent was the British driver Paul Di Resta who became runner-up with only four points’ beneath. However, even though if Scheider would have come second on this last race of the season and Di Resta first, Scheider would still have had one point in his favor.

With only ten years Scheider set in 1989, for the first time, in a kart-car and switched six years later to the Formula Renault. In 1997 he piled into the higher class Formula Three which is counted as the preliminary stage of the GP2 Series and the Formula One. Since 2000 Scheider starts for the German Touring Car Masters (DTM) which has several events also elsewhere in Europe. The touring car racing series is held since 2000 as the successor of the abandoned International Touring Car Masters (ITC). 

With Opel he won the 24 hours race in 2003 at the Nürburgring. In 2005 he switched for only one year to the a little slower racing series “FIA GT Championship“ but he returned quickly to the DTM and started in an Audi for the Team Rosberg in which he became a permanent place last year.

At the first race of this year’s season at the Hockenheimring Scheider came second behind the reigning champion, the Swede Mattias Ekström. After the second race in Oschersleben Scheider took over the leadership and did not give it up anymore. Paul Di Resta received a total of 71 points and became the runner-up of the race. The two stars did not have to worry about the other drivers at any time, for the third place went to Ekström, who had an enormous deficit of 15 points.

In this last race of the championship Di Resta drove officially the fastest round and established a new track record. Ekström was the one who could almost cover himself with glory because he drove in the qualification round more than one second faster than Di Resta, but unfortunately not in the official race.

Despite Scheider‘s victory, his team has to be satisfied with the second place for the manufacturer representation. The first place goes to the Mercedes Benz team for which Paul di Resta, Jamie Green and Bernd Schneider got a total of 5 victories.

A few days after Scheider’s triumph, he was elected as the motor sportsman of the year from the ADAC, Europe's largest automobile alliance, which was founded in Germany. Alongside Scheider, was nominated the German Formula One driver Sebastian Vettel, who became the youngest Grand Prix winner in the Formula One history, with his victory in September, 2008. The presentation of the prize will take place on November 22nd at the ADAC SportGala in Munich. The jury did not only classify the driver’s sportive performance but also his appearance outside the track. Scheider is very supportive with kids in need of help and that’s why he was chosen at the end.