Mercedes AMG settles for points in Moscow
Mercedes AMG had a triumphant day yesterday at the Moscow Raceway, host of the sixth round of the 2015 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season. However, their fortunes turned today, with Gary Paffett being their best placed man in sixth position. Pascal Wehrlein was tenth and lost the championship lead.
The Stuttgart manufacturer already struggled in qualifying, being only able to place Gary Paffett in the top 10. Despite yesterday’s performance, the C63 DTMs lacked speed and had difficulties to keep up with their competitors once they were out of the DRS zone.
The Briton had again a good performance on the track, extracting the best out of his car, despite the general lack of pace. Once again, Paffett drove a solid race to score points for Mercedes, but had hoped to be able to visit the podium: “Obviously, I would have liked to do better than sixth place, but in view of our pace, that’s probably about right. I lost the DRS to the guys in front quite near the start. I was just fighting the whole race after that, trying to draw away from the other drivers. We weren’t quick enough to win today, but sixth place means more points. It’s tough to score points every weekend. Hopefully, we can get back on the podium next race.”
Pascal Wehrlein drove a superb race yesterday to his second win of the season, but today struggled in a very competitive qualifying session. Despite being only 0.199 seconds behind the poleman, the German was in eleventh place. In the race he was faster than the men ahead of him, but a problem in the pits, when he had to brake to avoid a collision with Farfus and Green, wasted his efforts to work his way through the pack: ““Unfortunately, things didn’t go too well in the pits. Firstly, I had to brake sharply because it was very busy with traffic. And then after the pit stop, Mortara was ahead of me again. With Mortara in front of him, Müller had DRS the whole time. However, our poor qualifying today was the key factor in the race.”
Ullrich Fritz, Head of Mercedes AMG DTM, hoped his cars would be able to do more, but had a somber evaluation on the final result: “We expected more today after yesterday’s race. As regards to the final result, qualifying was definitely the determining factor. Unfortunately, we didn’t gain many places in the race. The cars all had a similar pace today, which obviously makes overtaking tricky, especially when you drop out of the DRS zone. Taking the whole weekend into account, it’s a mixed bag. It’s certainly good that Pascal was able to take points out of the championship leader and that Gary did well. What’s less encouraging, though, is today’s result in the race.”
After the races in Moscow, Mercedes is now second in the Manufacturers’ championship, 28 points behind Audi. Pascal Wehrlein has also lost the lead in the Drivers’ table, trailing Mattias Ekström by six points now. However, the pair formed by the 20-year old and Christian Vietoris at the gooix/Original Teile division of HWA AG still leads the Teams’ table by 23 points.
Next on the DTM calendar is Oschersleben, from the 11th to the 13th of September.
