The fourth DTM race of the race was run under perfectly blue skies at the Lausitzring.
Philipp Eng was on Pole Position ahead of Pascal Wehrlein and Gary Paffett. Marco Wittmann was the next BMW driver in fourth, ahead of Mike Rockenfeller as the best Audi Sport driver in fifth.
Audi was only present with five cars, since Rene Rast didn’t participate in the race. He spent the night in hospital for observation, and the team opted to pull out the car. The damage on the car was so big anyway, that you could question if it was possible to rebuild at all. Luckily Rast was all fine, and he was back on the track again Sunday to support his teammates.
The start of the race was much calmer that the one yesterday.
Jamie Green opted to pit already on Lap 1. Audi Sport has been lacking speed all weekend long, so their only hope for some good results was to try something crazy alternative, which might give them some bonus later in the race.
Wehrlein tried to make it past Eng with the help of DRS, at the start of the third lap. That didn’t work out, and instead it was Paffett overtaking Wehrlein. The stewards looked at Eng’s move towards Wehrlein which they decided was right on the edge, so they handed out a warning to Eng.
Paffett made it into the lead only one lap later, while Eng also dropped behind Wehrlein. A whole train started to appear behind Eng, including Wittmann, Joel Eriksson, Mike Rockenfeller, Edoardo Mortara and Timo Glock.
Rocky all of a sudden also dropped back, where he lost five positions in only a few corners.
Marco Wittmann also made it past Eng.
Photo: JJ Media
Edoardo Mortara made it past Joel Eriksson with a hard manoeuvre in Turn 1. The Stewards ruled the two to switch places again, since they thought it was too tough of a move by yesterday’s race winner. On top of that, he got a warning.
A few laps later, he repeated the same move against Eriksson, who had balked so much that Lucas Auer and Timo Glock also went past. The stewards once again handed out the same penalty. Mortara then had to drop three positions to let the Swede back in front.
Mortara was absolutely fuming inside the car, and right after letting Eriksson past, he almost ran into the back of him. Mortara had to go into the pit lane entry to avoid him, since it otherwise would had come to a collision between the two cars.
After the leading pitstops, Paffett was still leading, while Wittmann had jumped ahead of Wehrlein, thanks to a faster tire change.
Timo Glock lost a lot of positions during his pitstop. Instead of being in the top 6, he was all the way back in 11th, with 12th and 13th right behind him. It went just as bad for Lucas Auer, who rejoined in 12th. So it appeared to be a much better strategy to pit early than wait.
Jamie Green was one of the big winners of the pitstops, since he had jumped all the way from the back of the field to P5. He had however done 10 laps more than all the competition around him, so that would potentially bite him back later in the race. But he did overtake Philipp Eng shortly thereafter.
Timo Glock had slowly but surely made it towards the front again but being in 5th with 10 minutes to go. But he had ran out of DRS laps, while Philipp Eng, who by the way had passed Green again, had 8 laps remaining.
Photo: JJ Media
There were a lot of intensive battles for 10th, and the last point in the race. Robin Frijns made it past Lucas Auer with a nice overtake, and Edoardo Mortara tried to duplicate the Dutchman. Auer lost a further three positions on the following lap.
Jamie Green, Philipp Eng and Mike Rockenfeller fought for 6th, where there weren’t many centimetres between the cars.
Even though Marco Wittmann closed it at the end, Gary Paffett was still the first man to cross the line, claiming his second victory of the year, while Pascal Wehrlein took third. Championship Leader Timo Glock finished 5th.
Timo Glock was able to defend the Championship lead by just a single point ahead of Gary Paffett, while the Mercedes train with Pascal Wehrlein, Edoardo Mortara, Lucas Auer and Paul di Resta all were in front of Marco Wittmann in P7.
The DTM is back in two weeks’ time, when they will make the trip to Budapest and the Hungaroring.
