Red Bull Ring preview: The show arrives to the Alps
The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters visits the Red Bull Ring this weekend, host of the fifth round of the 2015 season. Audi Sport still dominates the standings, but by a diminished margin over Mercedes and BMW. The mid season show is served.
Saturday’s race 1 will be the ninth out of 18 this season, marking the half way point in the 2015 campaign. Audi Sport has been the strongest manufacturer so far, having started the year dominating the first two events, and managing to stay ahead despite being hampered by the performance weights.
Mercedes AMG and BMW Motorsport played catch up in Norisring and Zandvoort, closing the gap to their Ingolstadt rivals. In short, the three manufacturers arrive in Spielberg separated by just 60 points, which is a very little gap to allow for conservative games.
The performance weights have also been levelled up, with the heaviest cars on track being the Audi RS 5 DTM of Mattias Ekström and the Mercedes C63 DTM of Pascal Wehrlein, with 1,127.5 kilos each. Both drivers are tied to 76 points in the second place of the standings, just five behind Jamie Green, leader since the beginning of the season. The BMW M4 DTMs will be, once again, the lightest cars on track.
Back in 2014, Robert Wickens was on pole position, with Marco Wittmann winning the race, accompanied in the podium by fellow BMW drivers Augusto Farfus and Timo Glock. This year, both drivers arrive in Spielberg counting just one victory each, after a difficult first half of the season.
The Red Bull Ring was initially built in 1969 as the Österreichring. It was shortened and rebuilt in 1995 under Hermann Tilke’s design to address safety concerns, and returned to life as the A1 Ring. After seeing the pit building and main grandstand demolished and work stopped for several years. In 2008, Red Bull financed the reconstruction of the track, with the DTM going to the then renamed Red Bull Ring in 2011, with Martin Tomczyk winning the race. The Series has visited the Styrian track ever since, with Edoardo Mortara, Bruno Spengler and Marco Wittmann visiting the top spot of the podium.
ART Grand Prix’ rookie Lucas Auer will be the only Austrian driver on the DTM grid this weekend. The 20-year old has had a difficult debut season so far, having scored points on the second race at the Norisring a month ago.
Timetable
Action will take place during three days, with Saturday’s race featuring a twilight timetable. Here is the agenda for the weekend, all times are CEST (GMT + 2):
Friday 31st July
11:25: Roll Out
16:10: Free Practice 1.
Saturday 1st August
12:00: Free Practice 2.
15:00: Qualifying for Race 1.
18:13: Race 1 (40 minutes plus one lap).
Sunday 2nd August
11:00: Warm Up.
12:40: Qualifying for Race 2.
15:18: Race 2 (60 minutes plus one lap).
