Joey Hand tops practice for BMW
RBM BMW’s Joey Hand topped the time sheets for the DTM free practice session at Spielberg.
The Californian driver had a relatively quiet session, but claimed top spot with a fastest lap of 1m25.407 seconds from championship leader, Mike Rockenfeller, with just four minutes remaining. Filipe Albuquerque was third.
The 90 minutes were largely dominated by Audi, with Miguel Molina setting the fastest time early in the session, then team-mate Albuquerque setting the fastest time around the 45 minute mark.
The Portuguese sat at the top of the timesheets for the majority of the second half of practice, until he was beaten by Hand and Rockenfeller.
At one point, the Ingolstadt manufacturer had seven cars in the top-1o.
Marco Wittmann was fourth, ahead of last year’s winner, Edoardo Mortara, and Adrien Tambay who rounded out the top-six.
Jamie Green fared well in seventh, ahead of the BMW trio of Timo Glock, reigning champion Bruno Spengler and Martin Tomczyk, who rounded out the top-10.
Mercedes, meanwhile, endured another difficult Saturday, with DTM rookie Daniel Juncadella as its best placed driver in 15th, despite having an off at Turn 5 earlier in the session.
The Spaniard’s RSC Mucke team-mate, Pascal Wehrlein, also had a tough time of things after his car stopped on track in the closing minutes of the session, and as a result, brought out the yellow flags.
