Thierry Vermeulen after DTM Zandvoort: 'A tough one'

Published on 28 June 2023 by Niels Hendrix

Verstappen.com Racing is represented in the DTM by Thierry Vermeulen, who drives a Ferrari 296 GT3 of Emil Frey Racing. The 20-year-old Dutchman made his appearance last weekend during the second round of the DTM championship, in front of the home crowd, on the dune circuit in Zandvoort.

“First home race of the year done, and it was a tough one”, said Thierry. “Definitely some things we have to work on after this weekend. But first of all, I would like to thank all visitors for coming out there. I was pleasantly surprised to see so many Dutch fans out there supporting the DTM championship, it was amazing to see. All the fans coming up for pictures and signatures really gave a boost for the weekend.”

“The performance was tough this weekend. Already on Friday I couldn’t find the pace for some reason. And from Friday onwards it all went downhill with a difficult qualifying both on Saturday and Sunday. From my side it is unacceptable, my performance was simply not good enough for this level of championship. Our goal is to be competitive and be in the top 15 and we were far from that, so I have a lot of work cut out for me. We have to review the poor performance in qualifying.”

“Regarding the races, my pace was a little bit stronger. Especially on Sunday we made the old tyres work well during the start and I had some nice battles with Mattia Drudi which I really enjoyed. To battle my old teammate on the track where last year we were on the podium together was fun even if we weren’t battling for the places we hoped for.”

“We had of course another technical issue which the team is working hard on together with Ferrari to see how and why this happened. They are trying to fix this as soon as possible as we have busy times ahead with the DTM Norisring and the GT World Challenge Sprint race in Misano.”

“I will be working hard on the simulator this week, preparing for Norisring, a track I haven’t driven before so the more work we can put in this week, the more it will pay off. So a difficult weekend for all of us. I was very frustrated this was during my home race, but nothing that we can change now. We can only try and come back stronger at the Norisring.”