Jamie Green and Audi win Race 1 in Lausitzring
Audi Sport put on a dominant show this evening at the Lausitzring to take a commanding victory in Race 1. Team Rosberg’s Jamie Green put on a strong drive to lead an Audi 1-2-3-4 at the south-Berlin track.
The new racing format delivered yet another exciting race, full of action right from the green lights to the chequered flag.
At the start, Audi Team Abt Sportsline driver Miguel Molina made his pole position prevail to take the lead, as his rivals fought for positions at the first corner. Green set himself in second place, followed by Audi’s Edoardo Mortara and Mattias Ekström and BMW’s Maxime Martin. Robert Wickens was the best man for Mercedes in sixth position.
The first five were very close together for most of the race, with Miguel Molina leading Jamie Green with a distance that was 0.6 seconds at the most. The Briton had an electric problem at the beginning of the race that unutilised his DRS. Despite this issue, Green was able to stay on Molina’s back, and also managed to defend from fellow team mate Edoardo Mortara. Mattias Ekström was the fourth in the group, also seeking to overtake the Italian.
Augusto Farfus was the only retirement of the race, having to stop in the pits in the initial stages. A damaged front splitter forced him into the garage.
Further back, reigning champion Marco Wittmann was having an interesting battle with Mercedes’ Daniel Juncadella, who was seeking to overtake the BMW for tenth position. The pair would hold out this fight for most of the race.
The last 15 minutes of the race were crucial to the final result, with the tyres starting to give up. Wittmann developed a problem on the front left, which caused him to lose several places, being overtaken by Mike Rockenfeller and Daniel Juncadella, and dropping in the classification.
Jamie Green turned up the heat on his attack on Miguel Molina. The Spaniard managed to hold the Briton off but, at the start of lap 25, Green found the gap into Turn 1 to pass the red RS 5 DTM.
As Green put a distance of over a second in just one lap, a similar move by Edoardo Mortara on lap 26 and, one lap later, by Mattias Ekström, saw Molina drop from the lead to fourth place, as he was experiencing problems with the tyres and the DRS.
The danger for Molina was BMW’s Maxime Martin. Pascal Wehrlein went through team mate at Mercedes Robert Wickens for sixth position, starting to close the gap on the Belgian. That kept the man from Team RMG occupied, which allowed Molina to recover and return to competitive lap times.
Pascal Wehrlein passed Maxime Martin for fifth position, with the Belgian losing a further place to Robert Wickens and finishing the race under pressure from Timo Scheider.
At the chequered flag, Jamie Green got his second victory of the season, followed by team mates at Audi Sport Edoardo Mortara and Mattias Ekström in the podium.
Miguel Molina was fourth, followed by Pascal Wehrlein, Robert Wickens, Maxime Martin and Timo Scheider. Mike Rockenfeller and Daniel Juncadella closed the top 10.
After this race, Jamie Green is the new points’ leader with 50, followed by Edoardo Mortara with 48 and Mattias Ekström with 40.
DTM action resumes tomorrow with the morning warm up at 9:50 CEST (GMT + 2).
