Mercedes-Benz contest the DTM, Europe’s most attractive touring car series with one girl driver and eight male fellow Mercedes-Benz drivers. All the nine will race the AMG Mercedes C-Class that won seven of the ten races held in the 2007 season.

New in the Mercedes-Benz driver line-up for the 2008 season are 32-year old Ralf Schumacher (Trilux AMG Mercedes C-Class 2007) and 22-year old Maro Engel (JungeSterne AMG Mercedes C-Class 2007).

The HWA team will be represented by: 43-year old five-time DTM Champion and winner of 42 DTM/ITC races Bernd Schneider (Original-Teile AMG Mercedes CClass); 24-year old DTM runner-up in 2006 and 2007, Bruno Spengler (Mercedes- Benz Bank AMG C-Class); 25-year old Jamie Green (Salzgitter AMG Mercedes CClass), winner of the final two rounds of the 2007 season; 21-year old Paul di Resta (AMG Mercedes C-Class), 2006 Formula 3 Euro Series Champion and four podiums and fifth in the championship in his DTM rookie season, in 2007, contested at the wheel of a 2005-spec C-Class. Di Resta is new in the HWA driver line-up and will race, just as his three team-mates, the new 2008-spec of the AMG Mercedes C-Class.

At the wheel of 2007-spec cars will be: 26-year old Gary Paffett (stern AMG Mercedes C-Class), 2005 DTM Champion and Formula 1 test driver for Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, 27-year old Mathias Lauda (AMG Mercedes C-Class) and 25- year old Susie Stoddart (TV Spielfilm AMG Mercedes C-Class).

With 61 wins secured in the 116 races it contested up to and including the 2007 season (1994/1995 and since 2004 in DTM as well as in the DTM successor ITC, International Touring Car Championship, in 1996), it is not only the most successful Mercedes-Benz alone but also the most successful car to ever have page 4 raced in the history of the series. Far more of a third of the 141 race wins Mercedes-Benz could celebrate in the 300 races contested since the brand’s motor-racing comeback, in 1988, have been secured by this dynamic four-door sedan, 30 wins were clinched with the CLK (from 2000 to 2003) and 50 with the 190 (1988 to 1993). From 1997 to 1999, DTM and ITC respectively weren’t held.

Like no other touring car series, DTM stands for thrilling motor sport. The media interest keeps on increasing year by year – and the same applies to the attendance figures and the TV viewing figures. In 2007, DTM was covered in 175 countries all around the world. In Germany alone, more than 580 millions of TV contacts were generated, last year, and the ARD TV coverage of each of the ten DTM rounds was watched by an average TV audience of 1.4 million viewers. A remarkable viewing figure that has got what it takes to ever match ‘Sportschau’ ratings and regularly turns the DTM coverage into one of the top-five Sunday programmes broadcasted up to 18.00hrs.

Norbert Haug, Vice President Mercedes-Benz Motorsport:
“The 2008 DTM will start in Hockenheim, where the previous season ended in October 2007 in front of packed grandstands. Everybody in our team looks forward to this race as well as to the season ahead of us. We welcome Ralf Schumacher to the team as young “old hand” with 11 years of experience in Formula 1, and Maro Engel as German junior who fought it out up to the DTM under difficult conditions and without guaranteed continuous flow of sponsor money. Our established driver team with Susie, Bernd, Bruno, Gary, Jamie, Mathias and Paul will put their feet down no less than the two new ones. In the new season, the spectators may expect even more exciting and, due to the revised rules, more straightforward and therefore customer-friendly races. During the winter, the C-Class drivers and their teams didn’t dawdle, they all want to continue forcefully the successful DTM campaign of Mercedes-Benz. We have already completed 300 races in the DTM and the former ITC since Mercedes-Benz began their involvement in this series. Our partner teams won almost 50 percent of these races and we want to further improve this hit-rate – hard but fair.”