BMW far from its own standards
BMW Motorsport had a difficult day today at the Lausitzring, host of the second round of the 2015 Deutsche Tourenwangen Masters season. Maxime Martin was their only driver in the points, in a modest seventh place.
Team RMG’s Martin stated the race placing himself in fifth position and following the leaders. However, after half distance, he came under attack from Mercedes Pascal Wehrlein, who gained a position on the Belgian. In the last lap, Robert Wickens also overtook Martin in the last lap.
Marco Wittmann was in the points’ positions during the first half of the race, but his pace dropped after developing issues with his front left tyre, finishing outside the points.
Bruno Spengler was the next best placed BMW in 11th place, followed by Martin Tomczyk and Marco Wittmann.
Jens Marquardt, BMW Motorsport director, classed the race as tough, blaming their lack of understanding of the standard tyres, the only compound available this year, for their poor results: “After a difficult qualifying, we had an equally tough race today. One car in the points. That is obviously far from satisfactory. Maxime Martin managed to work his way up into fifth place, but tyre problems shortly before the finish meant he was no longer able to match the pace of the leaders without DRS. Our problem is that we cannot get maximum performance out of the tyres over the entire distance. We must now analyse why that is.”
Maxime Martin felt the result wasn’t appropriate for BMW, but was happy of being the top driver for the manufacturer: “The positive thing is that I finished in the points. However, that is not enough to meet the high standards BMW sets itself. Towards the end of the race, you could see that I was no longer able to match the pace of my rivals. We must work hard to rectify that in the future. Finishing as the best-placed BMW driver for the second thime is obviously not a bad record for me. I have far more experience than in 2014 and am doing well. Despite this, we cannot generally be happy at the moment.”
Reigning champion Marco Wittmann also felt that tyre wear was behind his lack of pace: “My grid penalty put me in a difficult position from the word go. I still cannot really understand the penalty. Despite all that, I got off to a good start and did well for the first few laps. Then I probably put a bit too much strain on my tyres while behind other cars. That is why I dropped out of the points towards the end of the race.”
DTM on track action starts tomorrow with the morning warm up at 9:50 CEST (GMT + 2).
