09.05.2024A South African stirs things up in the DTM

He celebrated his greatest triumph in 2022 by winning the DTM championship.

Van der Linde comes from a motorsport family and started his career in South Africa. After initial success, he followed suit with his older brother Kelvin van der Linde in the 2016 season and continued to pursue his goal of becoming a professional racing driver in Europe. His springboard into European motorsport was the Audi Sport TT Cup before moving to ADAC TCR Germany in 2017.

The then 18-year-old also celebrated his debut in GT3 racing. He started at Petit Le Mans in the Audi R8 LMS GT3 from Land Motorsport and won the GTD class straight away. The following year the focus was entirely on GT3 racing, where Sheldon van der Linde competed with his brother in the ADAC GT Masters and also competed for WRT in the Blancpain GT Series (now GT World Challenge Europe).

For the 2019 season, Sheldon van der Linde took another important career step by joining the DTM with BMW. After a successful rookie season, he entered the history books in 2020 when he became the first South African to win a DTM race in Zolder.

Van der Linde had a hard time switching from Class 1 vehicles to GT3 cars in the 2021 DTM season and was unable to build on his performance from previous years.

For 2022, the BMW M6 GT3 has been replaced by the new model, the BMW M4 GT3. And in addition to the vehicle, the BMW driver also changed the team from Rowe Racing to Schubert Motorsport.

At the season opener in Portugal at the racetrack Portimão, he already placed in the points twice. Sheldon van der Linde then made his championship ambitions clear at the second race weekend at the Lausitzring. He confidently celebrated a double victory and moved to the top of the table for the first time.

In the strong field, no driver managed to break away significantly in the overall standings over the course of the season. Sheldon van der Linde asserted himself among the title contenders, including his third win of the season in the chaos of fog at the Nürburgring.

Traditionally, the season finale was again held at the Hockenheimring in 2022. Five drivers started the weekend as potential championship candidates. With two strong races, both of which he finished on the podium, Sheldon van der Linde prevailed with 164 to 153 points ahead of runner-up Lucas Auer in the Mercedes-AMG. This is the first time a BMW driver has won the drivers’ title in the DTM since Marco Wittmann in 2016.

Minichamps is launching this model exclusively for ck-modelcars and is limited to 333 pieces. This limited edition includes the pit panel that rounds off the winning model.

BMW M4 GT3 #31 DTM Champion Hockenheim 2022 Sheldon van der Linde, RRP €149.95, item-no.: 113222331

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BMW M4 GT3 #31 DTM Champion Hockenheim 2022 Sheldon van der Linde 1:18 Minichamps

149,95 €