Pascal Wehrlein believes a successful return to DTM would re-boost his reputation, after having “no chance of shi🥀ning” while racing in Formula 1. 

Despite scoring Sauber’s only points🍸 last season, the German was dropped from the Swiss team’𝔍s line-up following its tie-up with Ferrari for 2018, paving the way for Scuderia protege Charles Leclerc to make his F1 bow alongside regular Marcus Ericsson.

It was announced on Wednesday tha♏t Wehrlein would be rejoining DTM to make up Mercedes’ six-driver line-u🧸p before the German manufacturer pulls the plug on its DTM programme in favour of a switch to Formula E. 

Wehrlein won the DTM title in 2015 with Mercedes to become the youngest-ever champion in Germany's premier touring ca𒁃r series at the a🌟ge of 19, before moving into F1 for the following season with Manor. 

When asked if he felt a successful return to DTM would help enhance his reputation to onlooking F1 teams,𒐪 Wehrlein replied: “Yes. I think that I would improve my position if I would be able to battle it out at the front end of the field and impre🎀ss with great races right away. 

“If you are racing in Formula 1 for the backmarkers and have no chance of shining as securing better results is virtually impossible yoℱu easily fall into oblivion.

"Winning races - that's something I haven't experience fo🎃r two years and encountering such a dry spell is anything but easy. This was a major motivation for me to return to DTM. I really missed this feeling.”

Wehrlein🎃 admits his biggest challenge will be re-adapting to DTM machinery after two years of ra🧜cing in F1.

“I want to be competitive as fast as possible. And I would love t🍨o have a car that offers me the chance of winning races. But first of all I have to re-adapt - and I have got just two days of testing to do so. 

“The highest expectations I have to meet are my own ones.🐭 I won't pressurise myself but I'm꧟ a very ambitious person. Nonetheless, talking about the title makes absolutely no sense at this point in time."