Schubert BMW driver Kelvin van der Linde was incredibly lucky during his horror crash in Saturday’s DTM race at the Norisring. Former DTM champion Rene Rast believes that if his BMW M4 GT3 Evo had been further into the Grundig-Hairpin, the impact from Maximilian Paul’s unbraked Lamborghini would have had much worse consequences.
“Of course Kelvin was extremely unlucky to get hit, but on the other hand, he was also extremely lucky because if he had been five meters further into the corner, the angle would have been completely different,” Rast told ran.de. “He could have been hit much more from the side.”
In fact, the South African had just turned in when the Lamborghini hit the area of the left front wheel and the left door at high speed. Had he been at the apex, the impact would have occurred at a right angle, meaning the chassis would have taken the full force of the hit.
“The stupidest accident that can happen”
Rast also sees the fact that the Lamborghini Temerario GT3, which weighs around 1,400 kilograms including the driver, is a mid-engine car as a positive factor. “If the car had been a Mercedes or a Ford, for example, with the engine in the front and where the nose is much higher than the Lamborghini, it would have ended very differently.”
Die herausgerissene Tür zeigt, wie heftig der Anprall trotz günstigerer Umstände war
Foto: ADAC Motorsport
The low Lamborghini hit the BMW at a more favorable spot, and furthermore, the front of the Italian sports car gave way, which would have been completely different with an engine in the front of the car.
Team principal Torsten Schubert shares this opinion. “If it has the engine at the front, more would probably have gone through,” he says. “It is the stupidest accident that can actually happen – such a side impact. But you can see that the cars are built well and stable and the driver has relatively good safety.”
Kelvin van der Linde “thankful for life”
Kelvin van der Linde is well aware of this. Unlike Maximilian Paul, who had to undergo surgery between Saturday and Sunday after suffering a broken lower leg, the 30-year-old got off relatively lightly with bruises.
“I woke up this morning thankful for life and being able to get away from the worst crash of my career without any serious injury,” the BMW factory driver wrote on Instagram on Sunday. “Yesterday was a wake up call that we never know whats around the next corner and a reminder to be thankful for every day on earth.”
Furthermore, van der Linde thanked BMW: “Thank you to BMW for building a super safe race car, you saved my life.”
“The night was hell”
Originally, Kelvin van der Linde even wanted to compete in the DTM race on Sunday, but the pain was greater than expected. Rast, who is friends with van der Linde and looks after him together with manager Dennis Rostek through the agency Pole Promotion, picked up the South African from the hospital after the examinations on Saturday. He said van der Linde was “composed.”
“I think the whole procedure took six hours until we finally knew that, fortunately, nothing happened to him and he only has bruises,” Rast says. “I looked at him, but he couldn’t really walk, so I wasn’t quite sure if he was really okay.”
The severe pain came later. “I just messaged with him, and he says the night was hell,” Rast said on Sunday. That is presumably because “the painkillers wore off and the adrenaline then leaves the body.”
Why Kelvin van der Linde did not start on Sunday after all
“Accordingly, he then admitted today that it was probably better that he is now in bed and at home, can rest and then hopefully is fit for Oschersleben,” Rast says, referring to the upcoming DTM weekend in three weeks, where van der Linde plans to compete again.
Team principal Schubert also considers this realistic, although he had already ordered the ADAC GT Masters car to Nuremberg as a replacement so that van der Linde could drive. “Initially we thought that,” he says. “Then the swelling increased.” For this reason, they “called it off because we saw that it wouldn’t work with Kelvin.”
