BMW satisfied with the progress shown at Moscow
BMW Motorsport had in Moscow their second best weekend of the 2015 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season so far. The Bavarian manufacturer finished again in the podium today, with three BMW M4 DTMs in the points.
The season had been difficult for the former champions, who had struggled for pace, and even to get into the points, bar for one extremely successful weekend in Zandvoort. After the halfway point in the season, BMW remained in Spielberg for two days of tests, having made progress in certain areas.
The results were seen in Moscow. Once again the lightest cars on track, the BMW squad manage to have a consistent performance throughout the weekend, to leave Russia having been the second highest scoring manufacturer, with a total of 73 points, six less than Audi.
Bruno Spengler had reasons to be happy. Very competitive in a tight qualifying session, he was able to match the pace of the leader to finish in a strong second position. The Canadian from Team MTEK was genuinely pleased with the result: “After my third place yesterday, that was a fantastic result. Thank you very much to my team. The team was able to make even more significant improvements to the car, which allowed me to clock consistent lap times today. I am happy to have scored a lot of points in Russia, thanks to my two podium finishes. Unfortunately I was held up by Lucas Auer in the middle of the race. Fortunately I was able to overtake him and then hang on to second place.”
Maxime Martin drove a fighting race, overtaking Spengler in the initial stages and then having a battle with Mattias Ekström. The Swede overtook him with four laps to the end for third place, but the 2014 Rookie of the Year was pleased to score points for the team: “The race was great fun, but it was very tough. The Audis were very strong, particularly on the long run. Then we were blocked by Lucas Auer. But that’s life. Fourth place is not a bad result and scores us a few points.”
Marco Wittmann was only 0.146 behind the pole, but that meant being tenth on the grid. From there, the reigning champion made some progress to finish in seventh place. Wittmann complained of balance problems, which hampered his weekend: “Unfortunately I could do no better than seventh today. We didn’t get it together in qualifying and got stuck in traffic with the second set of tyres. Otherwise we could have been challenging for pole position. On Saturday I had a slow puncture towards the end of the race otherwise we could have done even better then.”
BMW Motorsport Director Jens Marquardt was happy with the results obtained in Moscow, which is a track that has traditionally been good for his team: “We can be happy with our outing here in Moscow. After two podiums yesterday, Bruno Spengler finished a very impressive second today. Unfortunately he was not quite able to make it onto the very top step. Maxime Martin battled hard to finish fourth and score some good points. Marco Wittmann was our third car in the top ten, finishing seventh. This racetrack has been a happy stomping ground for us: since Moscow has been included in the race calendar, we have always finished on the podium here.”
Bruno Spengler remains the highest placed driver in the standings for BMW, in fifth place with a total of 85 points, 41 away from the leader. In the Manufacturers’ table, the Bavarian squad is still third, 95 points behind Audi.
After Moscow, the DTM returns to Germany for the remainder of the season. Next on the agenda is Oschersleben, from the 11th to the 13th of September.
