Mercedes mildly satisfied after a tough weekend
Mercedes Benz had expected to get more from the second round of the DTM at the Lausitzring than just a handful of points. Being the best after Audi was little consolation, after problems with the tyres hampered their progress.
The score was very different for Mercedes from last year’s edition, where Pascal Wehrlein got his first pole and race win in the DTM. Despite driving good races both Saturday and Sunday, the Stuttgart manufacturer was no match for Audi, and had to be contented with being the best of the rest.
Daniel Juncadella drove a solid race on Sunday to finish in sixth position, being the first non Audi and the top Mercedes in his C63 DTM run by Mücke Motorsport. The Spaniard had a good weekend in Lausitzring, scoring points in both races, but had strong words for Edoardo Mortara, whom he felt pushed him outside the track: “So far this season, I’ve been getting off to really good starts. It’s especially important here to get off the line like a rocket. I gained two positions on the first lap, and after that, my pace was good. The car ran good, and I’d like to thank the team for that. I had a strong race pace. So it was a lot of fun out there. Towards the end, I attacked Mortara. I don’t consider his manoeuvre to have been 100% fair. He was defending his position on the inside which is OK. I then braked late and tried to go round on the outside. The way I saw it, he turned into me and left me no room, so I was forced out onto the grass. But at least I gave it a go.”
Christian Vietoris was seventh on Sunday, being the other Mercedes in the top 10, and scoring his first points this season. The German drove a good race, starting from the 15th position on the grid, and feels that more could have been achieved: “That was a good race, but not much more was possible in view of my position on the grid. The team did a good job overnight and improved the car considerably. We just got the setup wrong at the beginning of the weekend. We’ve been steadily improving from Friday to today, which is something quite positive, but we’ll have to start the next race on a better footing.”
Just as their rivals at BMW, Ulrich Fritz, Head of DTM for Mercedes, feels the tyres are the biggest hurdle to be overcome in order to have a proper competitive pace this season. He remained philosophical about his options, but expects to find a way for improvement: “That was a tough weekend for us. Daniel did a good job as the best non-Audi driver by placing sixth, but generally speaking, we expected more than P6 and P7. We had unforeseen problems with the tyres, which we’ll now have to look at in detail with our tyre partner, Hankook.”
After the second round of the 2015 DTM season, Mercedes Benz is second in the manufacturers’ standings, with 91 points, a whopping 174 behind Audi. Pascal Wehrlein remains the best placed driver for the manufacturer in the standings, lying fourth with 32 points.
Next round of the 2015 DTM season is at the Norisring, from the 26th to the 28th of June.
