Miguel Molina takes first career win as Wehrlein edges towards title
Audi Sport Team Abt’s Miguel Molina took a comfortable win in the second race of the DTM at the Nürburgring, while Pascal Wehrlein made a leap towards his first drivers’ title with fifth, with his closest championship rivals Mattias Ekström and Edoardo Mortara failing to score.
Molina had secured pole position and romped away at the start, while Audi Team Phoenix’s Jamie Green failed to get away from the line which allowed Mercedes’ Pascal Wehrlein a good run at the start and he was up to sixth from ninth on the grid.
Trouble soon followed as HWA Mercedes driver Robert Wickens spun into Audi Team Phoenix’s Timo Scheider at the first corner, with Scheider eliminated from the race and with Wickens returning to the pits to also retire with damage.
Further down the order, Gary Paffett, who had started from 23rd after missing qualifying, was knocked into a spin by outgoing champion Marco Wittmann. The stewards deemed the contact a racing incident. Paffett would soon retire with the new engine installation not performing as planned.
The race was held behind the safety car for two laps, with Molina resuming in the lead ahead of BMW Team RBM’s Tom Blomqvist and HWA Mercedes’ Paul Di Resta on lap four.
At the start of lap nine, Di Resta charged down the inside of Blomqvist for second at Turn 1, with BMW Team MTEK’s Bruno Spengler also passing his BMW team-mate a lap later, which was the last critical change at the front of the field.
All the movement was further down the order, with championship leader Pascal Wehrlein making a move on BMW Team RBM’s Augusto Farfus at the final corner to grab fifth on lap ten, with the Mercedes of Maximilian Götz and Daniel Juncadella both able to get ahead of the Brazilian down the straight.
On lap 13 however, Wehrlein fell back behind Juncadella, Götz and Farfus in the pits and was furious with the team. The 20-year-old lambasted the team for not pitting him a lap later, while the team assured him he could get the positions back.
On lap 19, on pace he was able to retake eighth from Farfus at the NGK-Schikane, while both Juncadella and Götz, despite being several seconds up the road, were ordered to slow down and allow Wehrlein through in order to maximise his championship challenge during the final stages of the race.
On lap 28, Wehrlein’s closest championship challenger Edoardo Mortara was eliminated from the race following a fight with BMW Team MTEK’s Timo Glock. Mortara had forced his Audi RS 5 past Glock, but Glock returned the favour, pushing out Mortara’s Audi at the next corner, with Mortara sustaining rear damage and was forced to retire.
Mattias Ekström also had a race to forget, running as high as tenth before a failed charge on Juncadella on lap 35 saw him lose the final points scoring position to the Schitzer BMW of Martin Tomczyk.
Molina went on to take his first career DTM victory, 7.5 seconds ahead of Paul Di Resta, with Bruno Spengler, now the only BMW driver in the title fight, finishing third.
Tom Blomqvist followed up a disappointing result on Saturday with fourth for BMW Team RBM, with Wehrlein’s fifth place seeing him extend his championship lead over Mortara to 37 points, with Ekström 38 behind and Spengler 46 behind.
The final round of the 2015 DTM takes place at Hockenheim on October 18th.
