Gerhard berger, head of the German racing series DTM, who celebrated his 60th birthday, knows full well that there was more to his reach during his career than he won. More than ten wins, the 210s races, more than two common third place in years 1984 in 1997. But back then it wasn’t just about talent, back then it wasn’t just a gift. Even then, he was considered famous the whole package. So: “Activity, discipline, egoism, speed, killer instinct, happiness,”So Berger. “This can lead you to the title of champion. However, this package was not as pronounced for me as it was for Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher or Lewis Hamilton."
So what was missing? Berger he never hid the fact that it was not just a difficult racing sport. “I always tried to cover both sides of the coin. Discipline, difficulty of racing sport. But also fun, nightlife. With that, you can win races, but you can’t win a title.“If today’s racers go to bed earlier during the race weekend, with laptop or training data, was for Berger night rest foreign word. “I didn’t go to bed at all. Luckily I didn’t smoke and alcohol didn’t work best as an athlete back then. But women, joy and fun, that fell by the wayside.”But not just for the fun of it. “It was, to some extent, a kind of counterbalance to our difficult sport, which was dangerous. Then you could have forgotten everything. I really enjoyed my life."
Today, at least not publicly and with everyone, they don’t want to see such a diversion of attention from the team. Just perfect focusing on racing. "This is a special type of man who can do it. I never belonged to that. However, I would make it clear: If you were to take both sides to the best of your ability, you would most likely be a ten-time world champion today. However, this is unfortunately not measured that way. But the career was good, no matter what it was. But most of all: I'm still alive. Many colleagues failed to do so."
Otherwise, he imagines he could race in today’s Formulas 1, but "with today's race cars I wouldn't get caught, I probably wouldn't be able to drive at all. It was more rustic with us, even the screws were different. We didn’t have such a flood of data and a crowd of engineers evaluating them. We had to do it ourselves, it was a completely different sport," so Berger. "Usually, good racers from one generation can be good in the second generation as well. However, he should grow up in the current generation. This is another life, my time was literally tailored for me."
