Mike Rockenfeller (left) won his first Drivers' Championship while Augusto Farfus (right) finished second in the championship.
The 2013 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters was the twenty-seventh season of premier German touring car championship and also fourteenth season under the moniker of Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters since the series' resumption in 2000.
Bruno Spengler started the season as the defending drivers' champion. BMW was the defending manufacturers' champion, and BMW Team Schnitzer the defending teams' champion. Mike Rockenfeller clinched his first DTM title at the penultimate round of the season at Zandvoort, driving for Audi.
This was the first season since 2005 without any female DTM drivers after Susie Wolff and Rahel Frey left at the end of the 2012 season.
A provisional eleven-round calendar was announced on 23 October 2012,[1] and the final schedule was published on 21 November 2012.[2] A revised calendar was released by series organisers on 19 December 2012, with the Norisring round moved back by a week to avoid a clash with the German Grand Prix. To accommodate the change of date, the Zandvoort meeting was moved from July to September, and would become the penultimate event of the season, with the Oschersleben and second Hockenheim meetings also being held later than originally scheduled.[3]
After competing with six cars in 2012, BMW increased its involvement in the series by expanding to eight cars.[4]Team MTEK ran the new team for the marque.[6]
Mercedes-Benz initially submitted eight entries to the grid, but later scaled back their commitment to six cars after parting company with Persson Motorsport.[8]
Joey Hand and Andy Priaulx swapped seats, with Hand moving from Team RMG to join Team RBM, with Priaulx going in the opposite direction, moving from Team RBM to Team RMG.[5]
Having originally been announced as one of the six Mercedes drivers for the 2013 season,[8]Ralf Schumacher announced his retirement from motor racing on 15 March 2013.[9]
BMW test driver[14]Marco Wittmann was promoted to a race seat for the 2013 season,[6] racing for Team MTEK.[5]
Susie Wolff ended her DTM career after seven seasons with Mercedes-Benz to focus solely on Williams F1 testing duties.[15]
For the first time that all-DTM cars introduced the F1-style Drag Reduction Systems (DRS) to adjust the rear wing and assist overtaking with rear wing inclination angle to 15°.
The minimum weight of the cars has been increased from 1,100 kg (2,425 lb) to 1,110 kg (2,447 lb) to better aerodynamic reasons.
The softer option tyre were introduced to improve spectacle and more degradable as well as pit stop window allocation tweaked.
^Mattias Ekström was disqualified from the race after infringing parc ferme regulations. Following an appeal by Abt Sportsline to the Deutscher Motor Sport Bund, the disqualification was confirmed; however, drivers were not promoted in the race results, and as such, no driver was officially recognised as having finished in first place.[16]