Photo: DTM Media

Edoardo Mortara tops Free Practice 3 in Spielberg

Action is underway at the Red Bull Ring, host of the second round of the 2016 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season. Edoardo Mortara placed his Audi RS 5 DTM fastest in a very competitive third free practice session this morning, in preparation for today’s qualifying and race.

The session was held under dry and sunny conditions, a prelude of the weather teams and drivers are expecting today.

Mortara set a best lap of 1:22.654 around the Styrian track, in a session largely dominated by Audi drivers. In fact, the Ingolstadt manufacturer topped the charts, with Jamie Green, Timo Scheider and Mike Rockenfeller taking the first four positions.

Mercedes AMG’s Paul Di Resta was the best man for the Stuttgart manufacturer in fifth place, 0.284 seconds off the pace. He was followed by fellow Briton Tom Blomqvist, who was the fastest man for BMW motorsport, 0.287 seconds behind Mortara.

Mattias Ekström, Adrien Tambay and Nico Müller followed for Audi, with rookie Esteban Ocon completing the top ten for Mercedes AMG.

The session was largely trouble free, although many drivers, including Gary Paffett, Daniel Juncadella, Maxime Martin and Jamie Green went wide at several corners, with track temperatures on the rise. All crews did practice pit stops in preparation for today’s compulsory tyre change. At the end of the session, all drivers did practice starts along the main straight.

Once again, the DTM field was very competitive, with all 24 cars separated by just 0.792 seconds.

Next for the DTM is the qualifying session at 12:50, with Race 2 scheduled for 15:10 CEST.