BMW's DTM champ swaps rides with Mini's Dakar winner

Tue, May 5 2015

BMW may not race in F1 any longer, and it doesn't compete with Audi and Porsche in the LMP1 class at Le Mans. It even shut down Mini's short-lived effort on the World Rally Championship. But that doesn't mean it doesn't race at all. In fact it's the current reigning champion both in DTM and at Dakar. So to highlight its varied motorsport programs, the German automaker had two of its top drivers swap rides.

German driver Martin Tomczyk, who won the DTM title in 2011 and now drives for BMW, took to Nasser Al-Attiyah's Mini All4Racing Countryman on the sand dunes of Dubai. Meanwhile the Qatari driver, who has won the Dakar Rally two times now, took to the wheel of Tomczyk's BMW M4 DTM around Oschersleben in Germany. They even repeated the game of musical chairs at Hockenheim over the weekend.

If anything, the promo clip shot by Red Bull just goes to show how different the varied racing machinery can be, and the challenges posed to racing drivers switching between disciplines. But lessons aside, it's a cool clip, so check it out above.

Two champions swap cockpits: Martin Tomczyk drives the MINI ALL4 Racing, Nasser Al-Attiyah the BMW M4 DTM.

Munich (DE), 1st May 2015. From asphalt to sand and back again: BMW DTM driver Martin Tomczyk (DE) and MINI ALL4 Racing ace Nasser Al-Attiyah (QA) both entered unfamiliar territory and took each other's cars for a test drive.

As part of a video shoot for BMW Motorsport Premium Partner Red Bull in Dubai (AE), Tomczyk, a proven master of his trade on asphalt as the 2011 DTM Champion, took the wheel of the MINI ALL4 Racing, with which X-raid has won the famous Rally Dakar the last four years. During DTM testing in Oschersleben (DE), Al-Attiyah was given the opportunity to drive Tomczyk's BMW M Performance Parts M4 DTM. Two wins at the Rally Dakar are just some of the successes the rally driver from Qatar has had to date. He followed up his first victory in 2011 by winning in the MINI ALL4 Racing in January 2015.

"Driving the MINI ALL4 Racing through the sand and over the dunes in Dubai was a fascinating experience and was so much fun," said Tomczyk. "The car has an incredible amount of torwue – and the test in the dunes was an amazing adrenalin rush even for an experienced race driver such as myself. It's totally different to driving on a circuit. You can only appreciate what Nasser and the other MINI drivers really achieve at the Rally Dakar when you have tried it yourself."

Al-Attiyah on his first encounter with the BMW M4 DTM: "I have contested a few races on asphalt throughout my career, but it has always been my dream to drive a DTM car. The BMW M4 DTM is fantastic. The aerodynamics are really noticeable in the turns in particular. There's an incredible amount of grip. I was also impressed by the brakes of the DTM car."

Tomczyk and Al-Attiyah swapped cars for a second time on Friday at the DTM season opener at Hockenheim (DE). The rally driver did several laps in the BMW M Performance Parts M4 DTM on the Hockenheimring, while Tomczyk in the MINI ALL4 Racing raced around the off-road track on which the FIA World Rallycross Championship hosts a championship event as part of the supporting programme for the DTM weekend.

Watch the video of the spectacular action when the two exceptional drivers swapped cars here:
http://www.redbull.com/en/motorsports/offroad/stories/1331720211731/bmw-seat-swap

By Noah Joseph