They will be very busy in the south of Germany and the northern part of Switzerland the next few months.
R-Motorsport will not only enter two DTM cars, but four cars at the start of the season at Hockenheim in May.
Ferdinand Habsburg and Daniel Juncadella will join Paul Di Resta and Jake Dennis, who was announced last week. At that point, it only sounded like two cars from the start, but that has been doubled to four now.
Habsburg is 21 years old and born in Austria. He is actually part of a noble family – think Niki Lauda. Habsburg has competed in various single-seater series since 2014, but gave sportscar racing a go at the 24 hours race in Daytona 2018, where he drove for the Jackie Chan DC Racing outfit. He has opted to get roof over his head again in the Aston Martin Vantage DTM car.
Juncadella has a very good knowledge to the company, who is building the four DTM cars for R-Motorsport, i.e. HWA. That is the team that ran and build Mercedes DTM cars for many years – the manufacturer that Juncadella has raced for in and outside of DTM. The Spaniard has five DTM seasons on the CV, and all of them has been in a car with the three pointed star. On top of all that, there will be Formula E test and development duties at HWA for Juncadella too. So he will spend a lot of hours in their company.
R-Motorsport has been allowed by Aston Martin to call the DTM cars for an Aston Martin – even though the factory has nothing to do with them. R-Motorsport is a big Aston Martin dealer in Switzerland, and has raced with the brand in the Blancplain Endurance Series as well, and was very close at grabbing the Bathurst 12 hours win in Australia earlier this month, with that AMR car.
But there is no doubt, that they will have a nice mix of experience (Di Resta and Juncadella) and daring youth (Habsburg and Dennis). It’s going to be very exciting to follow them at the Hockenheim on 4-5 May, when the 2019 DTM season starts.