Mercedes drivers Robert Wickens and Lucas Auer were the winners of DTM this weekend at the Nurburgring. Auer won race 1 on Saturday and effectively moved to second on the standings behind Mattias Ekstrom while Wickens won today’s race leading a 1-2 finish for Mercedes-AMG.
Ekstrom still leads the championship with 136 points away from Auer with 127 points, Rene Rast with 124 points, Marco Wittmann with 115 points and Jamie Green with 113 points. In the manufacturer’s category Audi leads with 550 points thanks to two teams in 1st and 2nd, Mercedes-AMG is second with 498 while BMW is third with 450 points.
Saturday
Race 1 was dominated by Mercedes, with four cars in the top four led by Auer, Paul Di Resta, Wickens and Maro Engel. Audi and BMW had a rather disappointing race but for Rast, he was the best placed Audi after finishing fifth ahead of Green’s Audi. Rast however picked up a five place grid penalty for causing a collision with Engel and reaching his third warning of the season.
The track conditions were tricky, first rain then dry followed by unexpected rains again. This caught a few drivers by surprise especially those who had pitted for slicks. Augusto Farfus took the lead after his stop, running on slicks and even extended his lead towards a potential win. But the rains came back, Ekstrom had slicks too and both drivers were forced to stop thereby losing valuable positions. Edoardo Mortara finished in P7 in yet another Mercedes, ahead of Farfus, Wittmann and Gary Paffett.
Sunday
Mercedes managed to score a double podium in race 2, after having dominated race 1 yesterday. Wickens finished ahead of teammate Di Resta while Wittmann rounded off the podium in his BMW M4 DTM.
Wittmann started from pole but lost the place to Wickens, and later fell behind Di Resta. Wickens and Di Resta stayed close throughout the race and even had some minor contact. Bruno Spengler finished fourth ahead of Engel, Ekstrom, Green, Timo Glock, Farfus and Tom Blomqvist all in the top ten.
Glock and Nico Muller had a collision that resulted to Muller’s Audi suffering extensive damage. Rast on the other hand served his five place grid penalty in this race, lost time in his pit stop before finishing 12th.
The next race heads over to Spielberg, Austria on September 22.
