It was an Audi dominated Saturday in Austria at Red Bull Ring, when Round 15 of this years DTM Championship was run.
The race was the first after the DTM series had removed the success ballast from all cars, so it was expected beforehand for Audi to be dominant, since they have proved to have the fastest car of the year, when you subtracted the weight.
Jamie Green had Pole Position for the Saturday race, while Nico Müller started in second ahead of Mattias Ekström, before the first non-Audi in the shape of Marco Wittmann lined up fourth. He was followed by two more Audis with Mike Rockenfeller and Rene Rast. Only Loic Duval was the only Audi man to fall behind, starting second last in the field.
The start of the 55 minutes long race went incredibly smooth in DTM standards, and there wasn’t even a wing mirror going flying. Robert Wickens got off to a fantastic start from 7th and was quickly up to 4th.
On the second lap of the race, Ekström got past teammate Müller, and then started hunting down Green.
Lucas Auer and Augusto Farfus had contact on the second lap, where Farfus went off the track with over 200 kph. Thankfully he didn’t hit anything but slid though the gravel and made it back on the track again. There was a fair bit of shouting on the team radio from Farfus, which BMW M4 DTM actually was airborne before going though the gravel, after hitting a bump on the grass going out there.
Mike Rockenfeller had some difficult first few laps on his new tires and slid all over the track. He was under hard pressure from Gary Paffett, and the German ended up running wide and onto the grass in the final turn, resulting in the Brit going past.
Rene Rast collided with Robert Wickens, and that resulted in Wittmann going past Rast. Wickens got damage to his car, but could continue the race.
Jamie Green was the last of the leading men to pit, but he still made it out in front of all the drivers, that already had been to the pits.
Wittmann outbraked himself, in the fight with Wickens, but he came back onto the track without losing any positions.
Rene Rast had problems again two laps later, when he made a very late dive on Maxime martin, and ended up spinning himself. That way he lost any chance of points in the race.
Photo: JJ Media
Mike Rockenfeller was ready to bounce back again against Gary Paffett, and made it past. Paffett made a mistake so Lucas Auer also was able to get past.
Shortly before the finish of the race, we saw Augusto Farfus retire. He was way out of the points anyway, after his trip through the gravel.
With 5 minutes left of the race, Mattias Ekström was able to pass Jamie Green, also with the help of DRS.
The Swede went on to win his first victory of the season, and extended his Championship lead. Jamie Green finished second while Audi cleared out the podium with Nico Müller in third.
Robert Wickens was the best Mercedes man in fourth, while Marco Wittmann was right behind has the best BMW driver.
The second race of the weekend will be run on Sunday.
