Mattias Ekström tops day 3 of testing in Hockenheim
Mattias Ekström was the fastest man on the third day of the official ITR pre-season testing, taking place this week in Hockenheim, just four weeks ahead of the beginning of the 2016 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season.
15 drivers were on duty today, five for each of the three manufacturers involved in the championship.
The day started with rain falling over the Baden-Wüttemberg track, thus conditioning the programme. Daniel Juncadella was fastest for Mercedes AMG, having been the busiest man on track, with BMW’s Maxime Martin and Audi’s Timo Scheider following suit.
A mild sun and a drying track welcomed the afternoon session. Mattias Ekström completed 60 laps, with a lap time of 1:32.964, the best so far this week.
Daniel Juncadella was again the reference man for Mercedes AMG, just 0.177 seconds behind the Swede, with Martin Tomczyk in third, 0.295 seconds off the pace.
Audi’s Timo Scheider and Miguel Molina were next on the timesheets, followed by Gary Paffett with the second of the Stuttgart cars.
The 2008 and 2009 champion said: “I’m happy about today, we had a pretty tough day, some rain in the morning and a lot of running in the afternoon. The good news is that we have been competitive in the wet, I was the fastest Audi. It was a good start for the season preparations and for the first race weekend.”
BMW placed Marco Wittmann in seventh place, 0.561 seconds behind Ecky, with Team MTEK driver Bruno Spengler right behind.
Adrien Tambay and Nico Müller completed the top ten for Audi. Mercedes’ Robert Wickens and Paul Di Resta, BMW’s Augusto Farfus and Maxime Martin, and Christian Vietoris, with the last of the C63 DTMs, completed the classification.
As it happened on Tuesday, the latter part of the session was used to test slow zones and do practice pit stops.
The last day of the official collective ITR DTM preseason testing will take place tomorrow.
