Audi heads to Moscow expecting to win

The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters is back this weekend, after a four-week break, with the sixth round of the 2015 season taking place at the Moscow Raceway. Audi Sport, who has dominated the season so far, has the victory as their only target.

Audi Sport heads to Russia with 399 points in their account, 61 more than Mercedes Benz, their closest rivals. Mattias Ekström also leads the Drivers’ standings with 111 points, 13 more than team-mate Edoardo Mortara. The results are still provisional, since the DMSB (German motorsport national authority) still hasn’t pronounced themselves about the events at the second race in Spielberg, when Timo Scheider pushed out both Mercedes’ Robert Wickens and Pascal Wehrlein after an apparent team order on the radio.

Mattias Ekström won Race 2 at Spielberg, jumping to the lead in the Drivers’ standings. The Swede competed on two rounds of the World Rallycross Championship during these weeks, and is the clear favourite for Audi. Ekström was second in Moscow back in 2013, and third last year. His unfinished business in Russia goes through stepping on the top spot of the podium, and is unfazed by having one of the heaviest cars on the grid: “The only thing that’s still missing is a victory. I had the heaviest car in the field at Spielberg too and actually shouldn’t have been able to win there. We simply need to do the best job again. In that case, anything’s possible. Every point counts. This year, the title will be clinched by the driver that manages to score good results even with a lot of weight.”

Edoardo Mortara and Jamie Green are also on the top four in the standings for Audi. The Italian had an almost perfect weekend in Spielberg, scoring 38 points. The Briton, who has been improving his German through an intensive course in Ingolstadt, hopes to put an end to his five-race long pointless streak, and get back on course for the title.

Dieter Gass, head of DTM for Audi, and who was absent in Spielberg due to illness, is back this weekend to take the reins of his team. His expectations remain unchanged, despite having the heaviest cars on the grid: “This will be a really tough nut to crack. We’ve won at Moscow Raceway before but experienced a pretty difficult race last year. Our aim is another victory.”

The sixth round of the 2015 DTM season gets underway this Friday with the first Free Practice session taking place at 15:00 local time, (GMT + 3).