Photo: DTM

Antonio Felix da Costa takes first DTM victory as BMW dominates

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Antonio Felix da Costa continued to stamp BMW’s dominance on the Zandvoort DTM weekend after taking his maiden DTM career win ahead of BMW stablemates Augusto Farfus, and 2012 DTM title winner Bruno Spengler, who finished second and third respectively.

Pole-sitter da Costa withstood both an increasingly heavy rain shower in the last five minutes of the hour long race, as well as race-long pressure from Farfus.

However, the Portuguese Team Schnitzer driver eventually took his first DTM career win by 0.473 seconds ahead of the Brazilian.

Da Costa’s maiden victory was the second win for BMW in the 2015 DTM season, after stablemate and 2014 DTM champion Marco Wittmann took victory in Race 1 at Zandvoort yesterday.

Timo Glock finished fourth in his MTEK run BMW M4 DTM after qualifying seventh.

The ex-Formula 1 driver was the first of the 24 drivers to pit on lap 11 – a decision that saw him undercut Wittmann for position come the end of the hour. Pascal Wehrlein was the best of the Mercedes drivers in sixth.

The HWA driver drove around a mechanical problem in the closing stages of the race, and also withstood immense pressure between laps 33 and 39 from double DTM champion Mattias Ekström. The Swede was the highest finishing of the Audi drivers in seventh, after starting 16th.

Like Wehrlein, Ekström was carrying a 25 kilogram success ballast on his RS5 DTM car thanks to Audi’s four wins from eight races so far in 2015.

Christian Vietoris and 2005 DTM champion Gary Paffett made it three Mercedes’ in the top 10 after finishing eighth and 10th respectively. Adrien Tambay was ninth, despite having made contact with Maxime Martin’s BMW going into Tarzanbocht on lap 2.

Despite being unable to score in either of the two races at Zandvoort, Jamie Green still keeps his championship lead of 81 points over Ekström and Wehrlein who are both tied on 76 points each.

The race saw three DNFs, with BMW’s Martin Tomczyk becoming the first retiree on lap 18 after making contact with the Audi of Miguel Molina on lap 16.

Tomczyk was almost collected on lap 17, when he slowed dramatically on the start/finish straight after the bonnet of his Schnitzer run M4 DTM came loose.

The Audi of Edoardo Mortara and Mercedes of Dani Juncadella both retired in the pits on lap 22 as a result of contact the previous lap.