DTM to Remain at Eight Rounds; Assen Contract Terminated

The DTM will continue with eight rounds next season after abandoning plans for a ninth event of the 2022 campaign in early June.

In a calendar update on Thursday, the series outlined that it will visit four circuits in Germany and four international venues, all of which were previously announced.

The updated schedule comes with confirmation that championship organizer ITR has enacted the early termination of a contract with the promoter of the event at TT Circuit Assen, which had been hosting the DTM since 2019.

No other venue changes have been made, with Portimao still on track to stage the season-opener in late April.

The cancelation of the early June round disposes of a date clash with the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup fixture at Paul Ricard.

Two of last season’s DTM events clashed with the Endurance Cup schedule, causing several teams in the latter championship to rearrange their driver lineups.

The two GT3-based competitions will now completely avoid each other in 2022, however there are three overlaps between the DTM and GTWC Europe Sprint Cup.

“With the limitation of the calendar, we are, among others, following the desire from the teams to reconsider the slot in June and to run the 2022 season, like the previous one, on eight race weekends,” said Frederic Elsner, director of event and operations at ITR.

“With an additional event abroad in June, with at least one major motorsport event scheduled on every weekend anyway, the logistical effort would have been too big.”

The termination of the contract with Assen follows negotiations between ITR and the external promoter of the event, LDP International.

The head of the promoting organization, Lee van Dam, explained that higher event costs resulted in contract talks breaking down.

“After three years of hard work together with ITR, we have decided not to continue our contract for the near future,” he said.

“Assen is an event that is not being organized by the racetrack, but rather by us as an external promoter.

“Because of the increased costs for the event as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have tried to renegotiate our contract, but we haven’t found a solution that was acceptable to both sides and therefore we jointly agreed on how to proceed.

“We would like to thank everyone involved and the fans for their support and for three great years of DTM at Assen and we wish ITR all the best for the 2022 season.”

ITR managing director Benedikt Boehme added: “In extensive conversations, we have tried again and again to put the profitability into a proportion that would be acceptable for both parties.

“Eventually, we came to the joint decision to terminate the contract early. Here, I would like to thank Lee van Dam for the negotiations and for three very good events in Assen.”

2022 DTM schedule
April 29-May 1 – Portimao
May 20-22 – Lausitzring Tun 1 layout
June 17-19 – Imola
July 1-3 – Norisring
Aug. 26-28 – Nürburgring
Sep. 9-11 – Spa-Francorchamps
Sep. 23-25 – Red Bull Ring
Oct. 7-9 – Hockenheim