The DTM will introduce a ‘push-to-pass’ overtaking system and amend the rules on DRS use for the 2019 season, which is set to be the most powerful in the 32-year history of the German touring car series.

Alongside the introduction of the new ‘Class One’ technical regulations, a new overtaking system will make its début in the coming season.

Drivers will be able to access an additional 30 horsepower with the new push-to-pass technology, which is achieved by a fuel-mass flow restrictor which ‘briefly injects more fuel into the engine as a means to further improve the spectacle and action on-track’.

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The push-to-pass system will be limited to 12 uses per driver in a race.

The system will be introduced alongside the existing Drag Reduction System (DRS) which already allows drivers to change the angle of the car’s rear-wing to aid overtaking.

The DRS will be fitted to the new single-element rear wings, having previously been installed on the dual-element rear wings in recent seasons.

The DRS system will be open to drivers who are within three seconds of the car ahead, which is an increase over the one second of previous years.

Furthermore, within the final five laps of each race, every driver in the field will be able to activate DRS regardless of the gap to the car ahead.

The revised rules are expected to deliver increasingly frenetic final laps of each race.

The new rules are already promising the most powerful DTM season in the series’ history, with turbocharged four-cylinder two-litre engines combined with a general reduction in downforce.

The new season will also feature vehicles with reduced weights, with the minimum weight of the DTM car minus the driver or fuel being 981 kg, a reduction in 50 kg from 2018.

The changes will result in an increased power-to-weight ratio for DTM cars, which results in 1.6 kg per horsepower, down from 2 kg in 2018.

Cars are expected to be capable of over 300 kph (186 mph) on the fastest sections of the longer circuits.

“These additions are the perfect ingredients for spectacular overtaking – and that makes for thrilling racing,” said ITR GmbH Managing Director Achim Kostron.

“Thanks to the significantly reduced performance weight and the new aero package, the skill and courage of the drivers will really be placed under the spotlight: out on the racetrack.”