Nick Cassidy could still make his DTM debut this year, though it would likely depend on Alex Albon’s championship position.
Cassidy was signed to the AF Corse AlphaTauri team to race at select events in place of Albon this season.
Those select races were set to be the weekends where DTM would clash with Formula 1, given that Albon is the Red Bull F1 team’s reserve driver.
Yet, the DTM round at Spielberg two weeks ago was on when F1 was racing at Zandvoort.
Red Bull’s initial plan was to have Cassidy take Albon’s seat for the two races while the Thai driver fulfilled his F1 reserve driver role.
However, that plan changed when Albon claimed his first win in the race before at the Nürburgring.
The victory surged him into a competitive championship position, and Red Bull decided to gamble on retaining Albon for the Spielberg round.
“At the beginning of the year we didn’t have a precise plan of which races I would compete in the rest of the year,” Albon told German publication Motorsport-Total.
“Over the year, we got more and more points, and then we won for the first time.
“We are now able to fight for the championship, and we will try to win it.
“So, we decided to do [the Spielberg] round, take the momentum and see how it goes.”
Albon was fourth in the first race at the Red Bull Ring, but a puncture in race two meant he finished 17th.
He now sits sixth in the driver’s championship, 53 points behind leader Kelvin van der Linde.
There are three more rounds in the 2021 DTM calendar. The first of those is this weekend at Assen.
The next round is at Hockenheim before the season wraps up at the Norisring in October.
The Norisring finale coincides with the F1 Turkish Grand Prix.
According to an AF Corse spokesperson, whether Albon or Cassidy will be in the car for the last round is still yet to be decided.
However, should Albon rack up a strong tally of points over the next two race weekends and remains in title contention, he will likely stay in the car for the finale.
Should that not be the case, then Cassidy could finally get his break in DTM.
He last drove the car in a test at the Lausitzring in May.
