Juncadella says politics in DTM “destroyed my career” before seeking a psychologist

GT racing star Daniel Juncadella has said the DTM used to be so political in the past that it “destroyed his career in a way”.

Juncadella was part of Mercedes’ factory programme in the DTM for five seasons between 2013 and 2018, initially racing for Mucke Motorsport before landing a drive at HWA.

This was an era where manufacturers exercised absolute control over their teams and drivers, with Mercedes, BMW and Audi putting their entire weight behind who they thought would be their best bet for the championship.

This usually forced other drivers in their line-ups to play a supporting role, leaving them with a sour taste in their mouth about their time in the series.

The methods used by manufacturers to manipulate the results were also controversial, but many also considered it as part and parcel of Germany’s biggest championship.

Juncadella has now established himself as one of the top GT drivers of his generation, with an overall victory in Spa 24 Hours, as well as class wins in Daytona 24 Hours and Petit Le Mans.

But the 33-year-old revealed that the start of his career as a professional driver was incredibly tough, prompting him to seek a sports psychologist to work on his confidence issues.

“Since 2018, which is quite late in my career, I started working with a sports psychologist and focussed on these things,” he said in a podcast hosted by fellow racers Laurens and Dries Vanthoor.

“That was a big turning point in my career because my career has been a bit up and down in many, many years. After those successful years in F3, I decided to go the way of DTM and DTM also destroyed my career in a way with politics. 

“I never really understood why some decisions were made in one way or the other and for five years I had no results. You can be very good, you can do good in many aspects, but if the results are not coming, it just breaks you. 

“When I started working with a sports psychologist, it changed my perception a lot on how to deal with the lack of confidence.”

Juncadella won the 2012 Euro Formula 3 title as a Mercedes junior and was initially set to step up to GP2 with Rapax the following year.

However, delays in payment from his sponsor Astana forced him to abandon those plans and accept an offer from the Stuttgart-based manufacturer to race in the DTM.

But during his time as a factory Mercedes driver in the series, which yielded just one victory and a best finish of 15th in the standings, Juncadella felt he was never going to be given a fair chance to prove his worth. 

Daniel Juncadella, Mercedes-AMG Team HWA, Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM

The mental toll of DTM was also such that he crashed a Formula 1 car during an FP1 appearance at the 2014 Brazilian Grand Prix, forcing Force India’s regular driver Sergio Perez to miss an entire day’s running.

“For me, it destroyed my career in a way,” he reiterated. “I’m really happy where I am right now but [in] those five-six years I really, really struggled. 

“Those were also the days where I was a reserve driver for Force India in Formula 1 and I ended up crashing in a free practice because mentally I was just destroyed. I could not deal with it. 

“Now when I hear the word DTM, I’m already panicking. I don’t even want to hear it. I can’t really tell [from] BMW, Audi, Mercedes back in the day, what’s worse and what’s more political. 

“But with Mercedes it was hard. It was very hard because I felt like I was never going to be given the chance – and it’s not really true. For sure, you would get the chance, I believed that myself when I was there. [But] if you have a thought that is just negative, it’s never going to go away.” 

After grand prix winner Ralf Schumacher made a late decision to step down from the DTM, Mercedes promoted Juncadella’s former F3 rival Pascal Wehrlein – another one of its junior drivers – to the vacant seat at Mucke Motorsport.

This created a team of two promising young talents, but Juncadella revealed that Mercedes had already decided their fate before the start of the season.

“We had a team building day together somewhere in Germany on a boat in a lake, together with the team owner, team manager and the engineers,” the Spaniard recalled.

Daniel Juncadella, Force India VJM07 Mercedes, climbs out of his car after hitting the barrier.

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

“We get along a little bit and this is just before the first race weekend. Wehrlein just did one test but he was flying, he was super quick. But they said to us, ‘The target for us this year is probably around P15, P14’. 

“And we [Wehrlein and I] are looking at each other like, ‘what? What do you mean? I’ve just won F3, the kid is in his second year leading F3. Why do we need to target P14, P15?’. And it’s out of 20 cars.”

Juncadella revealed an instance where Mercedes allegedly faked a low-fuel situation to prevent Wehrlein from completing his fastest lap in qualifying, just as it looked like the German would knock Gary Paffett out of Q4.

“There was one race in Norisring which was incredible,” he said. “Back in the day, DTM had this qualifying format, which was Q1, Q2, Q3, Q3, Q4. Q3. There were the top four going forward to Q4.

“We made Q1, we made Q2. And then it’s Q3 and it’s 10 cars. Gary Paffett was in the hunt for the championship. It was still early days, like the fourth race of the year. 

“I think Paffett was P4 and Wehrlein was on a purple sector 2. They [Mercedes] opened the radio and said ‘box, box, box, we have no fuel, you need to box, we are going to be disqualified’. 

“He didn’t finish the lap because he was probably going to go into Q4 and drop Paffett to P5. So they boxed him and I think he finished P5 and I was P8.”

During the same weekend, Juncadella was indirectly instructed to stay behind race leader Paffett despite having a tyre advantage over the Briton.

This potentially cost Mercedes a victory in the DTM’s blue riband round, as both Paffett and Juncadella lost time and were overtaken by other drivers later in the race.

Gary Paffett, Mercedes-AMG Team ART, Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

Audi’s Mattias Ekstrom eventually claimed victory but was later disqualified for the infamous watergate incident.

“[Paffett] was on the hard tyres because they messed up the strategy and I was catching him three tenths per lap,” Juncadella explained.

“At some point I was on his ass. I opened the radio and I asked what do we do now? They said to me to defend your team-mate. They couldn’t really say ‘stay behind’ because there were rules [against it]. So they said, ‘protect your team-mate’. I looked in the mirror and there was nobody behind.

“I was just driving behind thinking I could just remove the radio, overtake the guy, win my first DTM race ever, be a hero for today, but in the long-term, it’s not gonna pay off.

“I could see the Audis, the BMWs starting to come. Then [Edoardo] Mortara arrives, overtakes me and they start fighting like crazy. They hit a bit and Mortara plays it a bit dirty with Paffett and the next corner Paffett just completely drills him – massive shunt and [both] out of the race.

“I’m just sitting thinking, this guy [Paffett], I’ve just stayed behind for 20 laps and throwing away my win, and he just shunted with the guy [Mortara] because he was pissed off at something.”

After Mercedes’ exit from the DTM after 2018, Juncadella spent another season in the series as part of the new R-Motorsport Aston Martin venture. He returned to the series with Mercedes in 2021 upon the adoption of GT3 rules, scoring a podium at the Nurburgring.

Now 33 years of age, Juncadella competes for TF Sport Corvette in the World Endurance Championship’s LGT3 class.