M FOR MULTITALENTED.

Profession: team manager, owner of a vehicle dealership and workshop

Passion: motorsport with BMW M, family, promoting young talent

Motto: "The racetrack is my favourite place to be.”  

Hello Torsten, thank you for taking the time to talk to us. Let's start with the first question: where does your passion for cars come from?

Even as a child I used to repair cars at home with my dad. He showed me how to lap pistons and bearing shells. That's how we started repairing the first cars for our neighbours, together with my brother, who also taught me a lot. And then we took our teacher’s mopeds home from school and repaired them. At some point, I became obsessed with the idea of driving something with two wheels. And after two wheels, four wheels eventually came along. Next, I bought my first autocross car. I didn't have a road vehicle, but I did have a racing car. I paid for it with the money my parents had saved for my first communion. They were completely dismayed. But the Trabant I was supposed to buy was no longer available.

At the beginning of your career, at barely 20 years old in the GDR, would you have imagined that your career in motorsport would turn out as amazing as it has? 

No. We towed our first car to the racetrack with a tow rope wrapped around the leaf spring. Three people sat up front, in a Trabant 500, which I had built up for my friend who had built my first workshop for me. I borrowed the Trabant. Today, we have three trucks driving around with lots of equipment and accessories. You couldn't have dreamed of that back then.

Schubert Motorsport Team was founded in 1999. What made you decide to swap the steering wheel and cockpit for the pit wall?

I never wanted to swap completely. That's why I try to take part in races every year and do a few training sessions. One highlight was, of course, racing with my sons again last year in the 24-hour races at Dubai and the Nürburgring.

But yes, in 1999, our company headquarters with all its facilities was completed here in Oschersleben. We then started to build up our own team and were keen to get back to circuit racing. I ended my autocross career in 1999 with the European Championship title. 

After that, I started to build up our team for classic circuit racing. I still remember: back then in the German Touring Car Challenge, I had to drive a qualifying race. There were 44 cars registered at Hockenheim on the Short Circuit, and you had to finish at least 38th. And I just managed to do that. That's how I got to drive my first race at Hockenheim.

Schubert Motorsport has been a BMW M customer team since 2012; what are the reasons behind your long-standing partnership with the BMW M brand?

The DTM has always been a highlight for us. The enthusiasm was there. When the peaceful revolution came, I didn't want to do anything else except work with BMW. The M brand was associated with the fascination of motorsport, and so my fascination with the M brand has always been there. I already had a BMW engine in my autocross car. With 1,600 cc, we built everything ourselves. Later, the first electronic fuel injection system followed. That's why the connection to BMW M came about quite quickly for us.

Schubert Motorsport uses BMW M racing cars in various racing series; you also own several car dealerships and you do build racing cars for customer racing – how do you manage all that and still achieve continuous racing success with BMW M with your team?

You need a good team. Not just at the dealership, you also need a family behind you. If you look around here on a race weekend, my wife is looking after the guests at the hotel. The children are also here, doing pit lane tours because they don't have to work on the cars or drive today. Colleagues from the car dealership have also been supporting us here for years, ever since the GT Masters and DTC days. And, of course, here today at the DTM. With a strong team effort, you can achieve something like this.

What would you say is the recipe for success in motorsport?

Optimism, of course. You have to be able to take defeat on the chin. It happens, and then you have to get back up, fight your way back to the front and bring the team back together. You have to learn from the mistakes you've made – and then you should be able to find success again.

Can you imagine growing further and competing in even more racing series with even more vehicles?

Yes, we are already doing that and trying to broaden our base. We utilise a Dacia for young drivers coming up through the youth slalom programme. This gives them an affordable way to get started here at the NATC on the Oschersleben circuit, where transport costs and the like don't play a big role. We also use the M2 there and let young drivers try it out to introduce them to more professional motorsport.

You also intend to use the BMW M2 Racing – can you tell us about your plans for the vehicle?

I think we need an entry-level class again. There have been various entry-level classes in the past. For example, the BMW M2 Cup, which had a unitary set-up. Our new concept is that teams come to the racetrack with their cars and we introduce the drivers to racing in this way, especially young drivers. And I believe that Schubert Motorsport will be back again to retain customers in this more affordable customer sports segment. Customers who have the talent, find sponsors and enter the world of top-level motorsport.

The idea is that we don't want to focus exclusively on top-level sport with Marco Wittmann and René Rast but want to take advantage of the breadth of the sport. We want to retain drivers who are interested and have the necessary budget as well. Because if a manufacturer says no, we're not interested in a particular series, then you're left standing there with nothing else to do. That's why it's important for us to maintain a broad base and retain the loyalty of many drivers. And then, if we don't have a suitable vehicle or aren't active in the given series, we can place the drivers with other BMW M teams we work with. Because these teams will eventually bring the parts to us for carbon repairs, things they need refurbished by us, and that in turn helps us to keep our workshop busy.

Schubert Motorsport also offers special foiling and liveries; which livery that you have created for a BMW M do you like best?

I think Sheldon van der Linde's car, which was branded Shell, had a special design. But also, the one for Marco Wittmann, for which we worked very closely with Schaeffler. The car has such a great green colour, it really stands out and is always very easy to spot on the racetrack.