Sheldon van der Linde
van der Linde in 2024
Nationality	South African
Born	(1999-05-13)13 May 1999 (age 26) Johannesburg, South Africa
Related to	Etienne van der Linde (uncle) Kelvin van der Linde (brother)
Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters career
Debut season	2019
Current team	Schubert Motorsport
Racing licence	FIA Silver(until 2019) FIA Gold(2020–2022) FIA Platinum(2023–)
Car number	31
Former teams	BMW Team RBM,ROWE Racing
Starts	96
Wins	6
Poles	5
Fastest laps	6
Best finish	1st in2022
Previous series
2017 2016 2015 2014	IMSA SportsCar Championship ADAC GT Masters TCR Benelux Audi Sport TT Cup Volkswagen Cup South Africa South Africa Polo Cup Championship
Championship titles
2022 2015 2014	Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters Volkswagen Cup South Africa South Africa Polo Cup Championship

Sheldon van der Linde (born 13 May 1999) is a South Africanmotor racing driver. He has been competing in theDeutsche Tourenwagen Masters since2019, winning his maiden title in2022. He is the younger brother of South African / German racing driverKelvin van der Linde.

Van der Linde began 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.^[1]

For 2016, van der Linde raced in theAudi Sport TT Cup, one of the support categories of theDeutsche Tourenwagen Masters. He would make an immediate impact, winning both races of the opening round at theHockenheimring. Scoring multiple podiums, as well as two wins, secured van der Linde fourth in his debut season. Thereafter, he has competed in theWeatherTech SportsCar Championship,ADAC GT Masters, and bothBlancpain GT Series'.

In January 2019, it was announced that van der Linde would be driving forBMW Team RBM in the2019 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season; thereby making him the first South African driver to compete in the series.^[2] He scored a pole position atZolder and finished 13th in the standings, 19 points behind teammateJoel Eriksson.

Van der Linde remained with RBM for the2020 season, this time alongsidePhilipp Eng. His season started out strongly, scoring his first DTM podium at the second round of the campaign at theLausitzring. The South African followed that up by winning race 2 atAssen, 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 toTimo Glock.

For2021, the first DTM season to be run underGroup GT3 regulations, van der Linde switched over to partner Glock atROWE Racing as the team fielded a pair ofBMW M6 GT3 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 atMonza, he started from pole position and led 21 laps in the first race of the second round at theLausitzring, but eventually received a five-second time penalty for a pit-stop infringement and finished in ninth place.^[3][4] After experiencing his first retirement of the season in the second race of the fourth round at theNürburgring, he also retired from both races of the next round at theRed Bull Ring. He finished sixth in the first race of the sixth round atAssen, 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.^[5]

For the2022 season, van der Linde was chosen to partnerPhilipp Eng atSchubert Motorsport as the team entered the DTM for the first time by fielding a pair ofBMW M4 GT3 cars.^[6] In the second round of the season at theLausitzring, he won both races.^[7] He scored his third victory of the season in the first race of the fifth round at theNürburgring, finishing ahead of his brother,Kelvin. It was the first time that two brothers finished 1-2 in a DTM race.^[8] Going into the final round at the Hockenheimring, van der Linde was 11 points ahead of Mercedes driverLucas Auer 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.^[9]

On 2 February 2025, van der Linde scored the biggest win of his racing career to date when he took out the2025 Bathurst 12 Hour at the famousMount Panorama Circuit inAustralia. Driving for Belgian outfitTeam WRT and driving aBMW M4 GT3, he teamed with Brazilian driverAugusto Farfus and his older brother Kelvin to take a 10 second win over their WRT team matesRaffaele Marciello,Charles Weerts and former multipleMotoGPWorld ChampionValentino Rossi.

The win made the van der Linde's just the third set of brothers to win a major race together at Bathurst after Geoghegan'sLeo and"Pete" (Ian) who won the1962 Bathurst Six Hour Classic together, and theBrabham brothersGeoff andDavid who had won the1997 AMP Bathurst 1000Super Touring car race together.

Van der Linde served as the reserve driver for theBMW i Andretti Motorsport during the2020–21 Formula E season.^[10]

In April 2023, van der Linde made his debut in aFormula E car during theBerlin rookie test withJaguar TCS Racing.^[11] He would later partake in the rookie test with the team inRome.^[12]van der Linde returned with Jaguar and participated in the rookie free practice session inMisano and the Berlin rookie test.^[13][14][15]

(key) (Races inbold indicate pole position; results initalics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races inbold indicate pole position) (Races initalics indicate fastest lap)

^* Season still in progress.

(key) (Races inbold indicate pole position) (Races initalics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2024	BMW M Team WRT	Robin Frijns René Rast	BMW M Hybrid V8	Hypercar	96	NC	NC
2025	BMW M Team WRT	Robin Frijns René Rast	BMW M Hybrid V8	Hypercar	375	17th	17th

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2018	Montaplast by Land-Motorsport	Kelvin van der Linde Christopher Mies Jeffrey Schmidt	Audi R8 LMS	GTD	749	27th	7th
2022	BMW Team RLL	Philipp Eng Marco Wittmann Nick Yelloly	BMW M4 GT3	GTD Pro	665	40th	9th
2023	BMW Team RLL	Connor De Phillippi Colton Herta Nick Yelloly	BMW M Hybrid V8	GTP	652	48th	9th
2024	Paul Miller Racing	Bryan Sellers Madison Snow Neil Verhagen	BMW M4 GT3	GTD Pro	730	21st	3rd
2025	BMW Team RLL	Robin Frijns René Rast Marco Wittmann	BMW M Hybrid V8	GTP	777	7th	7th

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2018	Montaplast by Land-Motorsport	Christopher Mies Alessio Picariello	Audi R8 LMS	GTD	321	20th	4th
2023	BMW Team RLL	Connor De Phillippi Nick Yelloly	BMW M Hybrid V8	GTP	322	2nd	2nd

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2023	Team WRT	Dries Vanthoor Charles Weerts	BMW M4 GT3	Pro	323	4th	4th
2024	Team WRT	Dries Vanthoor Charles Weerts	BMW M4 GT3	Pro	120	DNF	DNF
2025	Team WRT	Kelvin van der Linde Augusto Farfus	BMW M4 GT3	Pro	306	1st	1st

• Sheldon van der Linde career summary at DriverDB.com

• Racing drivers from Johannesburg
• South African racing drivers
• Living people
• 1999 births
• 21st-century South African sportsmen
• South African expatriate sportspeople in Germany
• White South African people
• Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters drivers
• Audi Sport TT Cup drivers
• WeatherTech SportsCar Championship drivers
• ADAC GT Masters drivers
• GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup drivers
• BMW M drivers
• Audi Sport drivers
• Racing Bart Mampaey drivers
• Schnitzer Motorsport drivers
• Rowe Racing drivers
• Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing drivers
• Nürburgring 24 Hours drivers
• Comtoyou Racing drivers
• W Racing Team drivers
• 24 Hours of Spa drivers
• ADAC TCR Germany Touring Car Championship drivers
• 24 Hours of Daytona drivers
• FIA World Endurance Championship drivers
• 24 Hours of Le Mans drivers

• CS1 German-language sources (de)
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from April 2022