Mike Rockenfeller wins Race 2 in Moscow
Audi Sport completed a textbook race this afternoon at the Moscow Raceway, host of the sixth round of the 2015 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season. Mike Rockenfeller won for the first time this year, with Mattias Ekström also visiting the podium. The Swede has now retaken the championship lead.
At the start, Mike Rockenfeller parted well, but Bruno Spengler got alongside him on the main straight. The two went side by side for the first two corners, until the Canadian had to defend from BMW fellow driver Maxime Martin.
The Belgian managed to get through, but went o the dirt, with Spengler and Green overtaking him again. The Canadian and the Briton rubbed each other, but Spengler prevailed in second position.
The move allowed Mike Rockenfeller to open a gap. Although Bruno Spengler tried to be faster, in the end the BMW wasn’t able to get closer to the Audi.
The DRS was enabled on lap four, which allowed some drivers to start to close the differences. Marco Wittmann was able to overtake team-mate at BMW Tom Blomqvist for eighth position.
Soon Pascal Wehrlein, who was in 12th place, was able to start closing into Edoardo Mortara, being clearly faster than the Italian. The Mercedes driver got right to the back of the Audi, but had to try several times before being able to consummate the overtaking manoeuvre.
Jamie Green started the round of compulsory pit stops very early, on lap 12. Marco Wittmann, Augusto Farfus, Pascal Wehrlein and Edoardo Mortara came in at the same time.
As Farfus was going towards his garage, Green was released in front of him, forcing the Brazilian to almost stop, with Wehrlein stuck right behind him. Meanwhile, Mortara was already pitting. After the three had completed their tyre change, Wehrlein had overtaken Farfus, but Mortara had already gone out ahead of them.
The stewards investigated Team Phoenix for an unsafe release, but deened no further action was required.
Over the course of the following laps the remaining drivers pitted. Leader Rockenfeller did so on lap 18, managing to maintain the lead. As Rocky came out, Bruno Spengler was recovering and closing the distance but Mercedes’ Lucas Auer, who hadn’t come into the pits, got in his way. The Canadian took 4 laps to overtake the young Austrian, losing more than three seconds to Rockenfeller.
Maxime Martin, Mattias Ekström and Jamie Green, who were coming right after, all managed to overtake the Mercedes before Auer, on lap 26, became the last man to complete the obligatory pit stop.
After the tyre change round had been completed by all drivers, Wehrlein was in tenth place, and closed the gap to Nico Müller and Edoardo Mortara, who were ahead of him. However, the Mercedes man wasn’t able to get ahead the two Audi RS 5 DTMs, despite being faster than them. Five laps from the end Wehrlein was told on the radio to “stay calm”, after he almost hit Müller by braking late on the last corner of the circuit.
Ahead of them, Mattias Ekström attacked BMW’s Maxime Martin, managing to overtake and take third three laps from the end of the race. Jamie Green was able to go past the Belgian at the same time, taking fourth position. The Belgian would be able to take his position back.
At the chequered flag Mike Rockenfeller took his first win of the year and fifth of his DTM career. Bruno Spengler and Mattias Ekström accompanied him on the podium.
Maxime Martin was fourth ahead of Jamie Green. Gary Paffett was the best placed driver for Mercedes AMG in sixth place, followed by Marco Wittmann. Edoardo Mortara, Nico Müller and Pascal Wehrlein completed the top 10.
Bruno Spengler was satisfied with the result, but the 2012 champion is looking for more: “I have mixed feelings, I’m happy as it was a good weekend and we scored good points for the team. But our ultimate goal is to be on the top spot of the podium and we are struggling to do that. This is what we are fighting for and where we want to be.”
Mike Rockenfeller was happy to be on the winning track, a year after his own mistake took him out of the race: “I feel relieved, it was a tough race. I’m glad to win this race and be back on the podium, to be competitive again. I’m very happy for this result.”
Mattias Ekström: “It’s good to have a trouble free race, my mechanics had a lot of work yesterday and I came to see them before going to bed, because they were still working. But today everything went well. We have this result now to look ahead in the championship. The fight goes on and it’s going to be very interesting.”
The next round of the DTM takes place in two weeks’ time in Oschersleben.
