Sheldon van der Linde (born 13 May 1999) is a South African

motor racing Motorsport, motorsports or motor sport is a global term used to encompass the group of competitive sporting events which primarily involve the use of motorized vehicles. The terminology can also be used to describe forms of competition of two ...

driver. He has been competing in the

Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM, German Touring Car Masters) is a grand touring car series sanctioned by ITR e.V. who have been affiliated to the DMSB-FIA since 1984. The series is based in Germany, with rounds elsewhere in Europe. The ser ...

since

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

and is currently the DTM champion, after winning his maiden title in

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

Career

van der Linde begun his motorsport career at the age of six, racing karts in his native South Africa. He would go on to win multiple national titles before making the transition to racing cars in 2014. In his first season of car racing, van der Linde won the South Africa Polo Cup Championship in dominant fashion. He would go on to win the Volkswagen Cup South Africa the following year. For 2016, van der Linde raced in the

Audi Sport TT Cup The Audi Sport TT Cup was a One-Design, one-make super car racing series by Audi#Motorsport, Audi based in Germany first held in 2015. Audi Sport TT Cup cars based on the Audi TT#Motorsport, Audi TT. It was a support series for the Deutsche Tourenw ...

, one of the support categories of the

. He would make an immediate impact, winning both races of the opening round at the

Hockenheimring The Hockenheimring Baden-Württemberg () is a motor racing circuit situated in the Rhine valley near the town of Hockenheim in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, located on the Bertha Benz Memorial Route. Amongst other motor racing events, it has hos ...

. Scoring multiple podiums, as well as two wins, secured van der Linde fourth in his debut season. Thereafter, he has competed in the

WeatherTech SportsCar Championship The IMSA SportsCar Championship, currently known as the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship under sponsorship, is a sports car racing series based in the United States and Canada and organized by the International Motor Sports Association (IMS ...

ADAC GT Masters The ADAC GT Masters is a grand tourer-based auto racing series founded by the international Stéphane Ratel Organisation (SRO) and supported by the German ADAC automotive club. Similar to an earlier ADAC GT Cup series in the 1990s, the new GT ...

, and both

Blancpain GT Series GT World Challenge Europe (known as the Blancpain GT Series between 2014 and 2019) is a sports car racing series organised by SRO Motorsports Group. It features grand tourer racing cars modified from production road cars complying with the FIA's G ...

DTM

2019

In January 2019, it was announced that van der Linde would be driving for

BMW Team RBM Racing Bart Mampaey (formerly Juma Racing) is a racing team based in Mechelen, Belgium that runs the BMW Team RBM operation in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters. Previously the team had been racing in the European Touring Car Championship and Wo ...

in the 2019 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season; thereby making him the first South African driver to compete in the series. He scored a pole position at

Zolder The Circuit Zolder, also known as Circuit Terlamen, is an undulating motorsport race track in Heusden-Zolder, Belgium. History Built in 1963, Zolder hosted the Formula One Belgian Grand Prix on 10 separate occasions in the 1970s and 1980s, a ...

and finished 13th in the standings, 19 points behind teammate Joel Eriksson.

2020

van der Linde remained with RBM for the 2020 season, this time alongside

Philipp Eng Philipp Eng (born 28 February 1990 in Salzburg) is an Austrian professional racing driver, and BMW Motorsport works driver. Career Karting Eng started karting in 2003, by competing in KF2, Intercontinental A Junior karts, competing in the Andrea ...

. His season started out strongly, scoring his first DTM podium at the second round of the campaign at the

Lausitzring The Lausitzring (formally known as the Dekra Lausitzring for ownership reasons) is a race track located near Klettwitz (a civil parish of Schipkau, Oberspreewald-Lausitz district) in the state of Brandenburg in northeast Germany, near the bord ...

. The South African followed that up by winning race 2 at

Assen Assen () is a municipality and a city in the northeastern Netherlands, and is the capital (politics), capital of the province of Drenthe. It received City rights in the Netherlands, city rights in 1809. Assen is known for TT Circuit Assen, the ...

, a race in which he scored the fastest lap as well. A consistent season helped van der Linde to sixth in the championship, finishing as the second-highest BMW driver, narrowly missing out to

Timo Glock Timo Glock (born 18 March 1982) is a German professional racing driver, and BMW Motorsport works driver. He raced in Formula One for the Jordan, Toyota, Virgin Racing and Marussia F1 teams. He finished 10th in the Drivers' Championship in both ...

2021

For

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, the first DTM season to be run under

Group GT3 Group GT3, known technically as Cup Grand Touring Cars and commonly referred to as simply GT3, is a set of regulations maintained by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) for grand tourer racing cars designed for use in various au ...

regulations, van der Linde switched over to partner Glock at

ROWE Racing ROWE Racing is the motor racing team of the German lubricant manufacturer ''ROWE Mineralölwerk GmbH''. Since 2011 ''ROWE Racing'' has competed in series such as the VLN (Association of Nürburgring Endurance Cup Organizers), the GT World Challeng ...

as the team fielded a pair of

BMW M6 GT3 The BMW M6 is a high-performance version of the 6 Series marketed under the BMW M sub-brand from 1983 to 2018 (with a break from 1990 to 2004). Introduced in the coupe body style, the M6 was also built in convertible and fastback sedan ('Gran C ...

cars in what proved to be their only season in the series. In the first seven races, he recorded five finishes in the top 10. After a fourth-place finish in the second race of the first round at

Monza Monza (, ; lmo, label=Lombard language, Lombard, Monça, locally ; lat, Modoetia) is a city and ''comune'' on the River Lambro, a tributary of the Po River, Po in the Lombardy region of Italy, about north-northeast of Milan. It is the capit ...

, he started from pole position and led 21 laps in the first race of the second round at the

, but eventually received a five-second time penalty for a pit-stop infringement and finished in ninth place. After experiencing his first retirement of the season in the second race of the fourth round at the

Nürburgring The is a 150,000 person capacity motorsports complex located in the town of Nürburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It features a Formula One, Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a long "North loop" track, built in the 1920s, around t ...

, he also retired from both races of the next round at the

Red Bull Ring The Red Bull Ring is a motorsport race track in Spielberg, Styria, Austria. The race circuit was founded as Österreichring (translation: Austrian Circuit) and hosted the Austrian Grand Prix for 18 consecutive years, from to . It was later sh ...

. He finished sixth in the first race of the sixth round at

, before experiencing four consecutive retirements. His campaign ended with an eleventh-place finish in the drivers' standings, with the fourth-place finish at Monza remaining his best race result.

2022

For the 2022 season, van der Linde was chosen to partner

Schubert Motorsport Schubert Motorsport is a private motorsport team founded and owned by team principal and European Autocross champion Torsten Schubert, and headquartered in Oschersleben, Germany (near the Motorsport Arena). The team has operated as a BMW priv ...

as the team entered the DTM for the first time by fielding a pair of BMW M4 GT3 cars. In the second round of the season at the

, he won both races. He scored his third victory of the season in the first race of the fifth round at the

, finishing ahead of his brother,

Kelvin The kelvin, symbol K, is the primary unit of temperature in the International System of Units (SI), used alongside its prefixed forms and the degree Celsius. It is named after the Belfast-born and University of Glasgow-based engineer and phys ...

. It was the first time that two brothers finished 1-2 in a DTM race. Going into the final round at the Hockenheimring, van der Linde was 11 points ahead of Mercedes driver

Lucas Auer Lucas Auer (born 11 September 1994) is an Austrian racing driver. He is the nephew of former Formula 1 driver Gerhard Berger. He currently drives for HTP Winward Motorsport in DTM. He was a member of the Red Bull Junior Team. Early career In ...

in the drivers' standings. In the Saturday race, which Auer won, van der Linde finished second after starting from 16th due to a 10-place grid penalty. He went into the Sunday race two points ahead of Auer in the drivers' standings, eventually winning his maiden title with a third-place finish, which put him 11 points ahead of Auer, who finished the race in seventh, in the final drivers' standings.

Racing record

Career summary

^* Season still in progress.

Complete IMSA SportsCar Championship results

(

key Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (map ...

) (Races in bold indicate pole position; results in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap) ^* Season still in progress.

Complete Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters results

(

) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:van der Linde, Sheldon Sportspeople from Johannesburg South African racing drivers Living people 1999 births White South African people Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters drivers Audi Sport TT Cup drivers WeatherTech SportsCar Championship drivers ADAC GT Masters drivers Blancpain Endurance Series drivers BMW M drivers Audi Sport drivers Racing Bart Mampaey drivers W Racing Team drivers Schnitzer Motorsport drivers Rowe Racing drivers Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing drivers Nürburgring 24 Hours drivers