1,000 Greatest Drivers: Marco Wittmann

He had the highest single-season rating ever in my touring car model.

I almost got this done yesterday but couldn’t quite because I was working on completing my IMSA end-of-season statistical tables over the weekend to help me to eventually determine which IMSA drivers to include on my top 200 list and I also had a shift volunteering for the Crisis Text Line last night, but I’m going to try to have both this post and the Richard Burns post written today. And the next statistical tables I’ll complete will be those for this year’s WEC season (I already have the speed percentiles, but not most of the other data).

Not only did Wittmann set the all-time highest single-season rating in my touring car model in his 2013 rookie season when he swept fellow rookie and ex-F1 driver Timo Glock to give him a rating of .810, he also was the highest-rated touring car driver globally in both his 2014 and 2016 title seasons, making him the only driver to lead my model three times. When DTM shifted from being a touring car series to being a sports car series in 2021, he lost a lot of his dominance but he’s still had some noteworthy sports car accomplishments including a win in the 2023 24 Hours of Spa, and if he remains with BMW’s WEC team (which is not confirmed) he will probably have more although lately he seems to be riding Dries Vanthoor’s coattails.

I raised Wittmann’s 2023 grade from C to C+ once I realized I had entirely failed to account his 24 Hours of Spa win (although Philipp Eng was the leader of that team, in my opinion) but I think this is the first year he probably shouldn’t be rated as he finished 12th in DTM points while his teammate René Rast and Sheldon van der Linde were 4th and 6th and Rast beat Wittmann 10-3 and van der Linde beat him 9-5. Granted, both of those drivers are also extremely highly rated in my model so Wittmann’s rating might still be above average, but probably not up to his usual standard. As for Wittmann’s WEC season, his car did outperform the other car co-driven by Rast and van der Linde, but that was almost entirely Dries Vanthoor’s doing because he was way faster than all the other BMW teammates (although Wittmann was narrowly faster than Rast). It’s possible I might change my mind and list Wittmann but it doesn’t look likely at the moment.