Marco Wittmann leads record top seven lockout for BMW at Zandvoort

Reigning DTM champion Marco Wittmann has taken his and BMW’s first victories of the 2015 DTM season in Race 1 at Zandvoort.

Antonio Felix da Costa took the best result of his DTM career with second, while Maxime Martin was third, to give the Munich-based manufacturer its best result of the 2015 DTM season.

After being jumped by Wittmann, Da Costa and Martin off the start, pole-sitter Farfus finished fourth.

The 2012 DTM champion Bruno Spengler finished fifth, Timo Glock sixth, and DTM rookie Tom Blomqvist was seventh, meaning seven of the eight BMW M4 DTM cars scored points.

Mike Rockefeller was the best placed Audi driver in eighth after a difficult day for the RS5 DTM drivers. Pascal Wehrlein was the only Mercedes driver to score after finishing 10th.

Wehrlein’s Mercedes stablemate Gary Paffett almost ended the race in the top-five, but the 2005 DTM champion dropped out of the points paying positions after making contact with Farfus in an attempted pass for P4 on lap 24.

Paffett attempted to pass the Brazilian, but made slight contact with the rear of the BMW Team RBM car and ended up in the gravel. The Briton managed to keep the car going, but ended up 11th.

To compound a miserable day for the British drivers, championship points leader Jamie Green failed to finish after finishing his race in the gravel.

Mercedes’ Paul di Resta ended up in the barriers on the first lap after glancing the back of Mercedes team-mate Robert Wickens – an incident that brought out the safety car until lap 5.

Wickens, who won Race 2 last time out at the Norisring, then retired with around 10 of the 40 minutes remaining.

The 2011 DTM champion Martin Tomczyk was the only BMW driver to not score, after retiring his Schnitzer prepared M4 DTM in the pits at the end of lap 5.

Audi’s difficult weekend continued after both Edoardo Mortara and Miguel Molina also retired.