DTM » Ralf ready to sail into the sunset?

He should have sailed into the sunset a long time ago, he was naf at F1 and now he''s naf at DTM, thats why no one wants him to drive for them.

I bet he wakes up each morning thinking "I am the underachieving brother of the great Michael Schumacher" :0)

I feel for Ralf, a little. But he's got to be honest with himself! He's not very good! Three points in a year old car is not that great of an achievement when you see what some other drivers have achieved with the same machinery in this and previous years.

I think there are probably drivers out there who would be a much better investment for Merc than Ralf...

Has there ever been a really successful post-F1 Touring Car career? If it hasn't gone well for Ralf at least he's in good company.

And he was a superb driver once.

Well, Squiggle, Bernt Schiender didn't too bad coming from F1 to DTM. Pretty successful post-F1 to TC career...Mika also didn't do so bad out of it. Trouble is Ralf wasn't really that good in F1 by any standards and that has followed him into TC. I think he was only signed because Mika retired and they (Merc) wanted a 1, German and 2, ex-F1 driver in the team.

Yeah, okay, but Bernd Schneider moved across while he was young and touring cars form the main part of his career. Those who moved to touring cars after a full F1 career don't have a very good record. Alesi, Frenzten, Hakkinen all had moments but none of them ever looked like the drivers they'd been in F1. Partly because they were generally slower than they had been, of course, but also because it's a different discipline. The same goes for earlier drivers like Rosberg and Mansell.

And take a look at 1999 through to the early 2000s. Ralf was a very good driver.

one of the reasons given for a F1 drivers failure to really do good in saloons, is that they are used to visually seeing the inside wheel on corners and can place a car to 1 cm, but in saloons, they can see nothing of the front corner and thus play it safe and leave corners wider. another reason given, is that ex-F1 drivers shy away from contact (usually, jean) due to interlocking of wheels, whereas in DTM, the drivers have to really lean on other cars.

Good point Rich, and you can really tell the ones who have been in single seaters in their first DTM season (apart from Olly Jarvis, who I think is just a bit of a nutcase anyway)!

But, back to Squiggle. No. Ralf hasn't ever been a very good driver, except maybe 2001. When the best he could manage was three wins and forth in the championship. Not really that good. 11 years in F1 and the average finish in wdc for him over that 11 years is 7th. Sorry, but he's not any better than most of the average rate drivers who race in F1.

Come on now - you have to be a good driver to get into any of these disciplines!