BMW sort of humiliates Audi and Mercedes by winning the 2012 DTM title in its comeback season. They’ve been absent in DTM for many many years. Now they realize what they’ve been missing. They just showed this year with the M3 DTM, and won the championship.

In the tenth and final DTM race of the year Canadian driver Bruno Spengler won the drivers’ title, while BMW secured the manufacturers’ title. BMW Team Schnitzer ended the season at the top of the team standings. BMW has 46 DTM wins to its name.

So BMW M3 once again proved its excellence in racing. This amazing machine is among the top players in every field of motorsport it enters; be it Le Mans, stock car racing, drift championships, or touring car racing.

BMW press release:

In a remarkable finale, Spengler was able to leapfrog Paffett at the top of the overall standings. A magnificent start allowed the Canadian to move into the lead on lap one, and he then set about pulling away from the chasing pack– a task made far easier thanks to the excellent pit stops performed by BMW Team Schnitzer. Paffett closed the gap to Spengler consistently after the second round of pit stops, but was unable to catch and overtake the champion, who showed nerves of steel in a dramatic climax to the season. Spengler ends the year on 149 points, just four more than Paffett in second. After Volker Strycek (DE, 1984), Eric van de Poele (BE, 1987) and Roberto Ravaglia (IT, 1989), Spengler is now the fourth driver to clinch the DTM title in a BMW. BMW Team Schnitzer came through at the end of the season to win the team competition with 178 points.

In the manufacturers’ competition, BMW ended its comeback season in the DTM at the top of the championship on 346 points. Spengler, Farfus, Werner, Priaulx and Hand all finished in the points in Hockenheim – the first time five BMW drivers had come home in the top ten. Together, they picked up 60 points – enough to clinch the manufacturers’ title, despite BMW lining up with just six drivers, while its two rivals fielded eight cars at each race.BMW Motorsport can look back on a DTM season, in which the three teams and six drivers exceeded all expectations with the BMW M3 DTM. As well as Spengler, who had previously won at the Lausitzring (DE), Nürburgring (DE) and in Oschersleben (DE), Farfus also joined the list of BMW DTM winners in Valencia (ES). BMW also scored a further seven podiums, five pole positions and three fastest laps. All six BMW drivers finished in the points at least twice over the course of the season, with all three teams achieving podium finishes. BMW Team Schnitzer recorded six podiums, while BMW Team RMG and BMW Team RBM both claimed three each. 

Spengler was the most efficient driver of the season, scoring an average of 18.6 points per race finished. With 57.7 points per race, the six BMW drivers scored an average of sixteen points more than the eight Mercedes and the eight Audi drivers.