Last year’s Norisring race recap with Audi’s Mattias Ekström

The Norisring round of the 2013 DTM season provided probably the most iconic memory of the year.

While Mike Rockenfeller scooped the DTM title for Audi at Zandvoort, I don’t know anyone who begrudged Mattias Ekström victory in Audi’s home race at the Norisring – the 2.4-mile circuit, which is located in the grounds of the old NSDAP rally grounds, lies just over an hour from Audi’s Ingolstadt HQ in the German state of Bavaria.

For Ekström, qualifying wasn’t spectacular, but that was to be expected. From the 2013 Spielberg race onwards, the 2004 and 2007 DTM champion undertook a “new philosophy” regarding the set-up of his Team Abt Sportsline prepared Audi RS 5 DTM.

With some help from his new-for-2013 Race Engineer, Florian Modlinger, the pair would sacrifice some qualifying speed, with the trade off being the ability to move through the field come Sunday’s race.

So, Ekström qualified ninth, five places behind the best-placed Audi driver, Edoardo Mortara. The Swede then proceeded to have the most (in)famous drive in his recent career.

The second safety car came out as a result of Martin Tomczyk’s BMW clobbering the barrier just after the first turn, the Grundigkerhe. And it was during this period that Ekström pitted on lap 19.

He then put in an extra long stint to pit for his second stop on lap 78, and emerged from the pits ahead of team-mate Mortara and Mercedes’ Gary Paffett.

On lap 64, Ekström finally passed Mortara at the Grundigkerhe for the race lead, despite the Italian being given the call to let him pass four laps earlier.

On lap 83, Ekström crossed the line to take his first official DTM victory since Valencia 2011*. In addition to it being a year and three months since his last win, it was Audi’s first win at home since 2002 – the year Laurent Aiello took the chequered flag behind the wheel of an Abt prepared TT-R in his championship winning year. To top it off, it was Ekström’s 35th birthday.

In short, Norisring 2013 was one of those days which remind us why we go racing.

And then it all changed. After being found to have broken Article 44 of the DTM sporting regulations which accused Ekström to have a water bottle in his overalls in Parc Ferme, the Swede was stripped of his victory.

Robert Wickens was then given his debut DTM win. Now Mercedes had scored its 11th straight victory since 2003 around the streets of Nuremberg.

But things changed again. Following an appeal by the Abt Sportsline team to the German Motorsport Federation, the DMSB, as a result of the decision, Ekström was still denied his win. The DTM then went into further self destruct by stripping Wickens of his maiden series win.

So, 11 months short of the Norisring 2013 fiasco (the race took place on July 25 last year), how does Ekström feel about things now?

“Well, my initial reaction [to the disqualification] started with an ‘f’, ended with a ‘k’ and you can imagine the letters in-between,” Ekström joked to TouringCarTimes. “It took a few days [to get over it], but I’ve been in the business long enough to know how things are working,” he countered with reference to his 13 seasons as being part of the Audi DTM family.

What, then, does Ekström hope to achieve from the same race in 2013? What’s more, has last year’s Norisring saga made him a little more cautious to living up to his life motto of ‘go hard or go home’?

“Well, my dream is to copy the race performance and to improve the quali performance [from 9th on the grid]. [To nail a good lap around the Norisring], you need good confidence with your car to be close to the wall.

“You know, the results do not change my approach,” he follows it up with. “I will push as hard as every year.”

And it’s that attitude which is why he’s a double DTM title winner. It’s unlikely anyone in the pitlane would begrudge him taking an 18th DTM victory trophy home this time.

*Ekström also won the non-championship points stadium event in Munich, 2012.

Norisring track details:

Track length: 2.3 kilometers

Laps: 82

Lap Record: Bruno Spengler, Mercedes, 48,446 seconds (2008)

2001: Uwe Alzen (Mercedes-Benz)

2002: Laurent Aiello (Abt-Audi)

2003: Christijan Albers (Mercedes-Benz)

2004: Gary Paffett (Mercedes-Benz)

2005: Gary Paffett (Mercedes-Benz)

2006: Bruno Spengler (Mercedes-Benz)

2007: Bruno Spengler (Mercedes-Benz)

2008: Jamie Green (Mercedes-Benz)

2009: Jamie Green (Mercedes-Benz)

2010: Jamie Green (Mercedes-Benz)

2011: Bruno Spengler (Mercedes-Benz)

2012: Jamie Green  (Mercedes-Benz)

2013: Nobody (N/A)