Photo: DTM Media

Pascal Wehrlein and BMW become new standings leaders

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The Motorsport Arena Oschersleben hosted the seventh round of the 2015 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season, which saw a resurgence of BMW Motorsport, with Audi Sport struggling due to the application of performance weights.

The battle for the Drivers’ championship saw Mercedes AMG’s driver Pascal Wehrlein make the most of two fifth positions, surprisingly being the highest scoring driver among the top five in the standings.

Audi’s Mattias Ekström had a weekend to forget, not scoring a single point after mechanical issues hampered his progress on Saturday and a highly competitive qualifying session left him in 18th place for Sunday’s grid. Edoardo Mortara also struggled, having to retire in both races. Only Jamie Green was able to give a positive reading on Sunday, being the only points scoring driver for the Ingolstadt manufacturer.

Pascal Wehrlein now leads the Drivers’ standings with 140 points, 14 more than Ekström. Edoardo Mortara counts 110 points, followed by Jamie Green with 107 and Bruno Spengler with 104.

The Teams’ table continues to be led by the gooix/Original Teile pair at HWA AG, with 196 points, 36 more than BMW MTEK. Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline is now third, with 155 points.

On the Manufacturers front, BMW Motorsport has made a big step forward, being by far the highest scoring make at Oschersleben. The Bavarian squad now leads the table with 488 points, 66 more than Audi Sport. Mercedes AMG is 71 points behind the leaders.

All three championships are wide open with two rounds, four races and 100 points still left in the season.

The landscape is set to change with the new distribution of the performance weights. Whilst the BMW M4 DTMs have significantly improved since the tests after Spielberg, it remains to be seen how much of their new found pace is due to being the lighter cars in the field.

The DTM will be back on track in two weeks’ time, for the eighth and penultimate round of the season in Nürburgring, from the 25th to the 27th of September.