Marco Wittmann wins controversial Spielberg race
Marco Wittmann took his third win of the season at the Red Bull Ring, leading a BMW 1-2-3-4, followed by Augusto Farfus, Timo Glock and Martin Tomczyk. The action-packed race included a controversial penalty for Mercedes driver Robert Wickens, who was black flagged for not taking a drive through penalty for unsafe release, as well as a drive-through penalty for Jamie Green while the Brit was also leading the race for stopping one lap too late.
At the start, the Canadian was able to retain the lead from pole position after a perfect getaway, with a few hard but fair battles already starting to entertain the crowd as Audi’s Timo Scheider made his way up through the field. Wickens was leading from Timo Glock and BMW Team RBM’s Farfus, until the Brazilian overtook his stablemate and started chasing down the leader, who was now more than two seconds ahead of his direct rival.
It was not long before the BMW caught the Mercedes, starting an entertaining fight and, even more importantly, backing up the leading group, with the top eight drivers now all close together. Despite Farfus putting his best efforts to pass Wickens, the Canadian left him no choice but to try an undercut. The Brazilian elected to stop as soon as the pit window opened, with the rest of the field pitting a little later. The crowded pit lane saw the start of the next stage of the drama, with Wickens charged with an unsafe release in front of BMW Team MTEK’s Timo Glock.
As the battle raged on track, with Farfus making it past the Mercedes of Wickens after half a lap of side-by-side action, Audi’s Jamie Green surprisingly emerged from a late pit stop by taking the lead. That was not for long, however, as the Audi Team Rosberg driver was given a drive through penalty for having exceeded 50% of the race distance on option tyres, with a communication blunder responsible for Green stopping one lap too late.
Wickens managed to overtake Farfus back for what was the lead at the hairpin, but was still yet to serve the penalty which he’d been given by the stewards. Mercedes were still discussing the issue with the stewards, disputing the unsafe release, and so when the maximum of three laps available to take the penalty had gone by, Wickens was black flagged and angrily returned to the pits after having been disqualified from the race.
Farfus assumed the lead, but shortly handed his lead over to championship leader Marco Wittmann, who was now up to second after passing Glock, with Glock and Martin Tomczyk going on to complete a BMW 1-2-3-4. Audi Team Phoenix’s Timo Scheider tried desperately to even improve on his good performance by overtaking the BMW, but did not quite make it, and had to settle for fifth.
As the top five settled down during the closing stages, a very entertaining fight emerged between Audi’s Adrien Tambay, a charging Jamie Green after serving his drive-through, and the only Mercedes left in the points zone of Christian Vietoris, along with championship contender Mattias Ekström and 2012 DTM Champion Bruno Spengler.
Audi Team Abt Sportsline’s experience paid off as the Swede overtook Vietoris in style before passing Audi stablemate Jamie Green to take seventh at the finish.
BMW therefore dominated again in Austria – at least in the final results – by taking a 1-2-3-4 with championship leader Marco Wittmann leading Farfus, Glock and Tomczyk. Timo Scheider came fifth ahead of Adrien Tambay, who spectacularly made up for a difficult qualifying session to take a very nice result for Audi.
Despite the Swede’s hard fight for seventh, Ekström’s gap to Wittmann is now up to 39 points, with four race meetings remaining. Jamie Green, who could have been a race win contender, had to settle for eighth ahead of the only Mercedes in the points of Christian Vietoris. Team Schnitzer’s Bruno Spengler rounded out the top ten.
Next up for the DTM is the Nürburgring in two weeks’ time.
