Kalender Targeting Further Gains After “Huge Step” in First Year

Tom Kalender says he “wants to keep improving” after his first year as a Mercedes-AMG junior driver, admitting that his step up to DTM from ADAC GT Masters proved to be a bigger challenge than he initially anticipated.

Kalender became part of Mercedes-AMG’s junior roster this year after a breakthrough season in 2024 that saw him become the youngest champion in ADAC GT Masters history.

During his first season on the brand’s books, Kalender completed an extensive schedule at the wheel of the Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, competing in the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa with GetSpeed Performance, Indianapolis 8 Hour with GruppeM Racing and 24 Hours of Fuji and Super Taikyu with Craft-Bamboo Racing.

However, his main program came in DTM, where Kalender joined Team Landgraf to the team’s lineup with DTM veteran Lucas Auer and became the youngest driver in series history in the process.

He would go on to secure a best finish of fifth in the Hockenheim season finale, ending the season third in the Rookie of the Year classification behind Morris Schuring and Ben Doerr.

“Of course, it was a big step up to join Mercedes-AMG as an official junior driver,” Kalender reflected.

“So that was pretty good for me but then also on the championship side with DTM, it was a huge step compared to GT Masters last year.

“The level was quite a lot higher actually, to be honest. I didn’t really expect to be that much the difference, but yeah. A huge step this year.”

Kalender admitted that he found himself struggling to the relentless pace in DTM in particular, but felt he was eventually able to close his season off strong, peaking with second overall during the Intercontinental GT Challenge finale at Indianapolis.

“I’ve seen it before already in my GT Masters season, so you always compare a bit to the DTM guys,” he said.

“But when you’re finally there and you’re missing half a second,  which happens quite quickly to be honest, it’s not frustrating at first. But then after three races when you’re missing a bit, then you start to think about it.

“But I think we kept improving over the whole season, and in the end it was pretty good actually with fifth place in Hockenheim.

“And then also the Indy 8 Hour event was quite a good race with a second place finish overall.”

Kalender went on to set a target of continuing his upwards trajectory next year, with qualifying speed a particular point of interest.

“We want to keep improving,” he said. “We want to keep the same guys this year and just do the best job we can.

“For sure because we were struggling quite often in qualifying sessions this year. That’s the main point, because the races have been quite good already. So yeah, qualifying would be the main point.”

Kalender also praised the working relationship with his vastly more experienced teammate Auer, describing the Austrian’s input as “a huge advantage.”

“To work with Luggi was for sure a huge advantage for me, because he’s the quickest guy I think we had this year in the AMG cars in DTM,” said Kalender.

“Also on the experience side, he can help a lot. He has seen every single situation already on track, but also off track.

“I have to say our relationship is really good. We’ve become good friends over the season.

“But on the working side, of course I looked at a lot of his data and videos and could ask him some questions.”