Gary Paffett sets the pace at the Norisring
Gary Paffett was the fastest man in the first free practice session held at the Norisring this afternoon, kicking off the third round of the 2015 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters Season. The Briton set a best lap of 48.553 seconds, leading the field and the Mercedes cars, who were particularly strong today.
The Mercedes C63 DTMs were the leading cars on track, with Paul Di Resta in second place, only 0.026 seconds behind his team mate.
Bruno Spengler was third on his Team MTEK M4 DTM, 0.032 seconds behind Paffett, leading the Bavarian cars. Daniel Juncadella was fourth at the wheel of his Mercedes from Team Mücke, only 0.002 seconds away from Spengler.
Jamie Green was fifth overall and best for Audi Sport, lapping 0.045 seconds slower than the number 2 Mercedes, at the wheel of his RS 5 DTM from Team Rosberg. The Audis are heavily conditioned this weekend with the performance weights, and Dieter Gass said they expected to be 0.3 seconds behind the BMWs.
Adrien Tambay was sixth for Audi, followed by Mercedes’ Robert Wickens. BMW closed the top 10 with Maxime Martin in eighth place and Augusto Farfus and reigning champion Marco Wittmann, only 0.188 behind Paffett.
The session was very close, with all 24 cars separated by only 0.443 seconds. Miguel Molina, at the wheel of his Audi RS 5 DRM from Team Abt Sportsline, was testing race setups and was the busiest man on track, completing 45 laps.
DTM action resumes tomorrow with free practice 2 taking place at 10:15 CEST (GMT + 2).
