Tom Blomqvist storms to first DTM career win
BMW Motorsport consummated today their domination of the seventh round of the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season in Oschersleben. Tom Blomqvist drove a very strong race to achieve his DTM maiden win, leading Augusto Farfus for a Team RBM 1-2 finish.
Cloudy skies welcomed the DTM field this afternoon. Despite an initial dry forecast, the teams were now looking up and with a chance of rain towards the end of the race.
At the start, Tom Blomqvist got away well, unlike team-mate Augusto Farfus, thus taking the lead at the first corner. Da Costa got himself in third, followed by Marco Wittmann.
Under braking, a number of nudges saw Mercedes’ Christian Vietoris tap Audi’s Miguel Molina, with the Spaniard spinning and also touching Nico Müller. Both RS 5 DTMs were stuck, with the drivers having to retire. The incident caused the Safety Car to come out.
At the relaunch, Blomqvist was again leading the pack, followed by Farfus, Da Costa and Wittmann. Pascal Wehrlein went a bit wide at the first corner, but managed to keep the position.
Bruno Spengler was also under attack from Audi’s Jamie Green. The Canadian from Team MTEK was overtaken by the Briton, with the BMW going into the gravel, and losing another two positions. Green was charging ahead and, a few laps later, went through again at Turn 1 to take tenth place from Christian Vietoris.
Dirty tyres and down in the pack were enough arguments for Bruno Spengler to pit after just 12 laps. The Canadian completed a tidy pit stop, which opened the window for the rest of the competitors.
After the round of compulsory tyre changes, Spengler had recovered a position from Mattias Ekström, whilst Team Schnitzer’s Martin Tomczyk got a ‘drive-through’ penalty for an unsafe release in front of Mercedes’ Paul Di Resta.
The second half of the race was marked by the pulse between BMW’s António Félix Da Costa and Mercedes’ Pascal Wehrlein for fourth position. The pair were giving and taking from each other at every sector, and none of them could take anything for granted until the chequered flag.
But not everything was plain sailing for Wehrlein, as the pit stop light wasn’t switched on when he left the pits. For two laps HWA AG gave him instructions to turn the light on from the cockpit, which the 20-year old eventually managed to do, not without complaining about being distracted from his battle with Da Costa. The matter was referred to the Stewards for investigation.
The positions remained unchanged until the end of the race, with BMW locking the podium. Tom Blomqvist had his first DTM victory, followed by fellow Team RBM driver Augusto Farfus. Marco Wittmann was third.
Da Costa prevailed over Wehrlein to take fourth position. Paul Di Resta was sixth, followed by yesterday’s winner Timo Glock. Jamie Green was, in eighth place, the only man for Audi Sport in the points, with BMW’s Maxime Martin and Bruno Spengler completing the top ten.
Mattias Ekström, who had started the race from 18th position on the grid, was 11th, having fought with Bruno Spengler in the closing laps for the last point.
Winner Tom Blomqvist was both happy and relieved at the end, trying to take in the step ahead made today: “Words can’t really describe how I feel. It has been a tough season, so winning today is unbelievable. The guys gave me a really good car today, I didn’t think this was going to be possible.”
Next round of the DTM takes place in Nürburgring, from the 25th to the 27th of September.
