Mercedes happy to reach 150th DTM win

After seeing an Audi domination at the previous two rounds, Paul di Resta delivered a timely victory for Mercedes-Benz at Brands Hatch. The young Scot showed great pace all weekend as he led from lights to flag in Sunday’s Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters race.

This was the first race in sometime where the weights of the 2009-specification cars had been about equal between the two manufacturers, with Mercedes being at a disadvantage recently due to early season success.

Di Resta claimed pole in Saturday’s shootout, and made a good start in the race as he fended off a first corner challenge from Audi’s Timo Scheider. He led the race throughout and claimed his first victory of the 2009 season in front of his home crowd, and in doing so he also claimed Mercedes’ 150th victory in the DTM.

Speaking after the race a delighted di Resta described it as “A great race for me – it’s fantastic to score my first win of the season in my home race and to achieve the 150th win for Mercedes-Benz in the DTM together with my team”.

Despite seeing a healthy lead vanish due to late safety car interventions, he remained confident, “ The safety car periods towards the end of the race made it exciting; however, I always controlled the field”, he said.

With the victory di Resta has catapulted himself onto the tail of the championship leaders, albeit some 14-points behind leader Scheider, with three rounds remaining. However, he will be heading to Spain in a confident mood fresh from the victory at Brands Hatch and also based on the fact that he won in Catalunya last year.

Gary Paffett remains as the top placed Mercedes driver after the British round of the series. He had obvious speed during the early stages of the race, but was halted when he couldn’t find a way past Tom Kristensen for a number of laps. He eventually finished in 4th to keep his title aspirations.

“I moved up from sixth on the grid to fourth at the chequered flag – which is not bad here as overtaking is almost impossible at Brands Hatch. Therefore I am still happy with my result”, said Paffett.

The 2005 champion remains confident in his title challenge, stating In the overall ranking I am now nine points behind Scheider, but with three races to go everything is possible”.

Bruno Spengler qualified fourth and was running well until contact with Martin Tomczyk on the 48th lap caused a puncture. Luckily for the Spengler he was not forced to retire and managed to claim sixth.

“We had a good strategy and I was second after my first pit stop. After being hit by Tomczyk I suffered from a puncture. I therefore pitted earlier than planned. I finished sixth instead of second, but I am happy that I didn’t retire despite the puncture”, said the French-Canadian.

Jamie Green was hoping for a strong performance at his home race, but contact with Oliver Jarvis and the resultant penalty dropped him down the order.

“After my first pit stop I resumed right behind Jarvis. As I was faster than him I tried to pass him; unfortunately I touched him and he spun. I am sorry for that. The drive-through penalty destroyed my race”, said Green.

Summing up the weekend for Mercedes was Norbert Haug. The Vice President of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport was delighted with the 150th victory, and was full of praise for di Resta’s performance.

Haug said “We naturally enjoy Paul’s convincing first place very much. 150 wins out of 317 races so far are an excellent balance of our DTM activities”.

His summation could have feasibly stopped after one sentence, “Super! Paul and his C-Class were a class of their own here, indeed”, said Haug.

Mercedes head to Catalunya with their top three drivers in 3rd, 4th and 5th in the standings.

Audi pair Timo Scheider and Mattias Ekström lead the way on 43 and 38 points respectively. Gary Paffett has 34 points in third, with Paul di Resta and Bruno Spengler tying on 29.

The Teams Classification is a close affair with Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline leading on 65 points, closely followed by Salzgitter / Mercedes-Benz Bank on 63.