How Alfa Romeo (briefly) Dominated DTM

the year is 1992. the beastly Mercedes 190e Evo 2 has just won DTM after eight years of trying failing and trying again to grab a hold of the crown the championship's group a regulations had given rise to some of the most famous battles between some of the world's most famous cars in Motorsport history cars that if you are very very lucky you might even have had the opportunity to see out on the street but times were changing DTM was looking towards the future and the future that it saw didn't include the group a regulations that had enraptured fans for the last nine years they sought to free manufacturers from the shackles of true homologation the sun was Rising on a new era it was called class one the rule changes proved controversial amongst manufacturers with BMW Calling it Quits completely and Audi an opal making noises about leaving the sport while still developing their own new cars Mercedes however stood firm they didn't need to develop a new car their car had just one why would they spend the money well their answer came quickly it was a vivid red color it made a monstrous sound and left everyone else Mercedes included coughing in its dust this is the story of the Alfa Romeo 155 V6 TI the new class 1 rule set introduced in 1993 was a major departure for DTM since its 1984 Inception the championship had run on the group a regulations meaning entrance had to be pretty closely related to a production Road car of which at least 500 units had been made I covered this in more detail in my last video about the Mercedes 190e Evo II you should watch it if you haven't already the new class 1 Rules by comparison were very very lenient some of these structural components had to be kind as similar to a road car but the engine and powertrain didn't really have to have very much to do with a production Road car a couple of Manufacturers saw this as their opportunity to Dethrone the previously dominant forces of Mercedes and Audi if they decided to compete some people have made the argument that 1993 wasn't true class 1 and was instead a kind of group a plus thing however for all practical purposes this distinction is completely meaningless as will probably become clear quite soon Alfa Romeo was one of the manufacturers looking to try their luck Alfa Romeo have a strong history in Motorsport and indeed a strong brand at least amongst car enthusiasts known for their great looks and for their soulfulness code for poor reliability of course it seemed that a Touring Car Series would make a great fit for the company as it sought to bolster its their new small Saloon named the 155 was a clear attempt to Target customers who wanted something a bit more interesting than the Aging Mercedes 190e and something a bit more exotic than the kind of boring 3 Series what better way to convince customers of this than to beat the Germans in their own racing series Alpha grabbed a 155 and promptly threw most of it away keeping only what they absolutely had to to meet the regulations which was not very much at all while you could buy a new 155 with a two and a half liter V6 and four-wheel drive reviewers were a little bit underwhelmed with the car the primary complaint being that there was no option for a rear-wheel drive version it was four-wheel drive or front-wheel drive that was it this was of little bother to the engineers working on the race car however as they only really had one regulation in their way and that was the engine regulations I won't bore you too much but in a nutshell the manufacturers were limited to six cylinders two and and a half liters of total displacement and the engine block had to be made out of the same material as its production counterpart happily Beyond this they could do pretty much whatever they liked so a quick valve count will reveal that the race car had twice as many as the road car as well as a new aluminum cylinder head the 24 valve naturally aspirated two and a half liter v6 put out a substantial 420 brake horsepower and paired with a four-wheel drive system the 155 V6 TI was looking on paper at least to be quite formidable so that's the V6 part of its name dealt with what does TI mean well it means Turismo Internationale and international it certainly was many were skeptical that the Italian Outsiders would be able to compete against their super heavyweight German Rivals but Alpha weren't invited just to make up the numbers they were in it to win it if you're enjoying the video so far tap the like button it makes a huge difference thank you okay so Alpha had a car that weighed less had more power and had four-wheel drive how could they possibly lose well I'll save you the suspense they didn't Alfa Romeo's Factory Team Alpha Corsa would enter two cars one driven by Alessandro nanini and the other by Nicola laurini a couple of privateer teams got their hands on cars as well but we can safely forget about those for the time being things started out well for the Italian hopefuls with laurini scoring a win in the Rainy first round at zolder a privateer 155 in the hands of Christian Dana took second place here as well immediately proving the worth of four-wheel drive Mercedes being the only other Factory team competing that year at least from the start of this season quickly realized that their old car was too old they couldn't rustle up a brand new car overnight but what they could do is take a blowtorch to the one they already had and so that's exactly what they I did now I hate to break the flow of the video but I feel like this is important I can't pinpoint exactly what race Mercedes made these changes for the season overall both Mercedes AMG and zackspeed ran the old 190e Evo 2 and the new so-called 190e class 1 but when they made this switch I can't be certain I will from now on refer to the Mercedes entry simply as the 190. while we're having this quick aside I just want to clarify that there was more than alphas and mugs on the track it's just all the other cars were slightly older and being run by Privateer teams at least until race 10. you with me good let's move on Burn Schneider in a Merc 190 wasn't going to go down without a fight and took victory in round two at Hockenheim relegating lorini and his 155 to Second Place lorini qualified on pole for round three but was unable to finish the race handing Victory to Mercedes AMG driver and DTM Champion Klaus Ludwig this was followed by a second retirement for larini at runstorff where Kurt team racing for zackspeed took victory in his 190. where was this Alfa Romeo domination that we'd been promised round five at the Nurburgring saw larini take back the top spot and then again in round six at Norris ring 2. this was followed by another win for larini at Donington Park though this race didn't count towards DTM Championship points for some reason after this he won again a defaults and this was actually a mighty recovery drive for mourini who had qualified way down the order in 10th place by this point the competition was as good as over and indeed laurini didn't win any of the remaining three races he didn't need to Second at almanon Ring third at Avis and a disastrous 19th Place finish at the final race at Hockenheim a race that was to be fair won by his teammate nonini the Championship was lorini's Alfa Romeo had succeeded in their goal the question now was how would they fare against more equal opposition the short answer is not exceptionally well don't get me wrong Alfa Romeo and Marini were competitive but with Mercedes creating their own proper class one car an Opel entering The Fray 2 with their own four-wheel drive car the opportunity for Domination dried up for Alfa Romeo they weren't complacent the 1994 155 TI had some significant upgrades over the 1993 car most notably in the suspension and braking systems but it just wasn't enough to overcome the enormous leap that Mercedes had taken lorini managed to grab third place in the championship in 1994 losing to a dominant performance by Klaus Ludwig for Mercedes AMG and a slightly less dominant but still better than everyone else performance by jorg Van Norman for zackspeed 99 fives or laurini and Alfa Romeo by proxy fall down the order even further claiming just sixth place in the championship overall a fall from grace for the Italian team in 1996 DTM rebranded becoming the more International ITC which stood for international touring cars this saw races in places as far afield as France and Italy they even ventured all the way to Finland for round four Alessandro nanini was Alpha's man that year with laurini posting a very disappointing 11th Place Championship finish but nanini still only managed third the problems were bigger than that though the internationalization of DTM along with the supposedly Freer and less restrictive rules had seen the cost to compete soar at the end of 1996 both Alfa Romeo and opal withdrew from the competition and given that they Together made up two-thirds of the competing Factory teams the championship folded the 155 V6 TI may not have achieved the heights of what Alfa Romeo had hoped and it could easily be argued that the season that it did win wasn't entirely on Merit alone but I'm going to defend them here if Alfa Romeo could sort out a Class 1 car for 1993 they shouldn't have that achievement taken away from them on the grounds that their competitors couldn't get their act together fast enough to sort out their own cars would they have lost to a full season proper class 1 entry from Mercedes probably but it actually doesn't matter because Alpha were fast enough and Mercedes were not and let's not forget maybe the most important point of all the Alfa Romeo 155 V6 TI looked awesome ultimately it served Alpha's goal there's no doubt in my mind that the Legacy and perception of the at the beginning rather underwhelming 155 was boosted hugely by the car's DTM success the even if in reality the cars only shared a name and a shape if you haven't already you should check out this video about the Mercedes 190e Evo 2. if you have you should watch this one instead thank you for watching leave a like on the video If you enjoyed and join the new auto mobilistic Discord server as well the link is in the description until next time goodbye

Channel: automobilistic

Views: 330,629

Keywords: racing, race car, automobilistic, countreefus, motorsport, racing car, dtm, alfa romeo, alfa romeo 155, alfa romeo v6 ti, alfa romeo 155 v6 ti, alfa romeo dtm, alfa romeo touring car, touring car, touring cars, le mans, wec, imsa, f1, formula 1

Id: yfDIbgKE7bU

Length: 11min 22sec (682 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 04 2023