Audi reaches the half season point as the strongest brand

The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters is back this weekend, with the fifth round of the 2015 season taking place at the Red Bull Ring. Audi Sport dominates the Drivers and Manufacturers points’ tables and hopes to stay ahead of their rivals in Austria.

Four meetings and eight races have taken place so far, and Audi has won half of them, achieving also four pole positions and four fastest laps. Despite seeing their progress hampered by the performance weights, the Ingolstadt manufacturer still leads the standings with 48 points over Mercedes and 60 over BMW.

In the Drivers table, Jamie Green leads with 81 points, five more than team mate Mattias Ekström. The Briton has lost some performance weight and is now only 15 kilos heavier than the lighter car on the field. Green lost any chance of a good result last year after a drive through, choosing to remain focused and realistic for the date in Spielberg: “I’ve stopped making predictions, that’s just not possible in the DTM.”

Mattias Ekström’s RS 5 DTM will be, with 1,127.5 kilos, the heaviest of the 24 cars competing at the Red Bull Ring this weekend. The Swede hopes to achieve a good result at the home of his title sponsor: “It’s high time, especially because the Red Bull Ring is a home round for me. I live in Austria now and, aside from the races, have visited many other events at the Red Bull Ring.”

Dieter Gass, Head of DTM for Audi, expects his cars to be competitive again in Austria, returning to positive results to stay ahead of their rivals: “At Hockenheim and at the Lausitzring, with four victories in succession, we made a perfect start to the season. We got our comeuppance for it in the form of performance weight that, literally speaking, was a heavy burden that made life hard for us at the Norisring and at Zandvoort. Our aim for Spielberg is to return to the podium.”

The DTM action starts on Friday morning with the Roll Out session at 11:25 CEST (GMT + 2).