Photo: DTM Media

Strong progress for Marco Wittmann in the best of the BMWs

Team RMG’s Marco Wittmann was the major mover in the opening race at the Norisring, recovering from his relatively lowly 13th on the grid to take an impressive fourth at the flag.

There was extra cause for celebration for the best placed of the BMW drivers, as the melee at the front of the field enabled Wittmann to close to within two points of the championship lead.

Wittmann is now on 67 points, just behind new leader and first race winner Edoardo Mortara.

“For me it was a great race, to be honest. The first lap was good and I was able to gain some positions, and then of course we were lucky with the incident in front of us,” said Wittmann to TouringCarTimes.

“But we had good pace in the car, we were strong and I was able to go at a similar pace to the leading cars. Unfortunately the gap was too big to catch up, but the race pace was good.

“If you start 13th and finish fourth it’s always great.”

Wittmann conceded that he hadn’t performed as well as he’d liked in qualifying, which made his final result in the race all the more satisfying.

He said: “Six hundredths quicker we would have been P6, that’s how tight it is. I struggled a bit with the second sector to get the full potential out of the tyres. It was only P13 and I was hoping for more, but that’s the DTM – it’s tight. So I’m even more happy about the points for P4 and tomorrow I will try to qualify better.”

Wittmann also gave his view on the incident between Vietoris, Ekström and Wickens, which enabled him to make up a further three positions

He said: “I was too far away [to see it during the race] but I’ve just seen it now in the media. There are some drivers who complain about other drivers when they make the same mistakes as the others.

“I wasn’t involved so I can watch it from the outside and smile about it! I have a lot of respect for Ekström, he’s a good driver and has had a lot of success. But he should not always complain about other drivers – he’s not perfect.”