The seventh round of DTM 2018 was run on the streets of Nürnberg, also called Norisring.
Edoardo Mortara started the race from Pole Position with 0,001 second ahead of Philipp Eng, and 0,022 seconds from Marco Wittmann – Mercedes, in front of BMW, and BMW. The same trend continued all the way down to P10, where Nico Müller was the first Audi driver, who was 0,224 second behind Mortara.
Rene Rast crashed the car in qualifying, so he had to start the race from the back.
Mortara had a good start, while Wittmann jumped up to P2 ahead of Eng. Eng chose to pit already after the first lap, as well as Daniel Juncadella, Nico Müller, and Loic Duval.
Duval made a huge mistake in the pits, when he didn’t turn the car towards his mechanics, and instead had to be pushed back to get his tires changed.
Photo: JJ Media
Rene Rast pitted on the second lap and came out ahead of the leading cars, so he had to give them their places back. Since he got a blue flag, he had to let the whole field drive past.
Wittmann waited until the seventh lap before he pitted. It sent him out way ahead of Eng, but he should warm up his tires before he could drive full speed. Mortara chose to pit one lap after, to separate himself from the BMW drivers. Which he barely did, when he came out in front of the two BMW drivers, that were under pressure by Mercedes driver Juncadella.
Gary Paffett came out in front of everybody, but he quickly got caught up due to his cold tires. So his virtual lead turned to P3.
Timo Glock and Nico Müller had a duel bumper against bumper, where Glock ended up with his nose in front. Furthermore, Farfus also went past Müller.
Philipp Eng, Lucas Auer, Bruno Spengler, and Paul di Resta had a close duel for the actual fourth place. Auer tried to overtake Eng, but instead BMW driver Spengler drove past him. Both Spengler and Auer had used up their DRS chances, with still 23 minutes left of the race, so they could potentially be in trouble later on.
With 20 minutes left, Gary Paffett outbraked Marco Wittmann on Turn 1, so it became Mercedes 1-2.
Photo: JJ Media
Paul di Resta came past Bruno Spengler in the battle for the real fifth place, and he began his chase for Eng.
A few laps after, di Resta also went past, but there was a long train from di Resta via Eng, Spengler, Auer, Juncadella, Eriksson til Glock.
With five minutes left, Gary Paffett was right behind Edoardo Mortara. But even though he attempted to brake himself from the inside and the outside, Mortara managed to defend his lead and took his second win of the season ahead of Paffett, with Marco Wittmann on P3.
The second race of the weekend will be run tomorrow, with a whole new qualifying before the race at 13.30 CET.
