Preview: Close championship battle goes to the beach
The DTM’s second half of the season begins at Zandvoort this weekend, with a tight three-way battle resuming at the top of the standings between Audi drivers Mattias Ekström and René Rast, and Mercedes’ Lucas Auer.
The Swede from Team Abt leads with 113 points, just one ahead of the impressive DTM newcomer Rast, who returns to the circuit where he made his debut one year ago. Rast’s team-mate at Team Rosberg, Jamie Green isn’t too far behind, despite moderate results during the three last rounds after a strong start of the season, with Maxime Martin the best-placed driver for BMW Motorsport in fifth.
“Zandvoort is an old-school track and for me, personally, the most beautiful one in the DTM,” said Green. “Having won there for the first time in the DTM last year is still one of my highlights of the 2016 season. The fast turns are tremendous fun – particularly in qualifying with just a small amount of fuel in the tank.”
Circuit Park Zandvoort is 30 kilometres Northwest of Amsterdam, and just next to the beach facing the North Sea. The twisty 4.307-kilometre layout has its main overtaking points at Turn 1, the mythical ‘Tarzan’, and Turn 14, with an average speed of 170km/h. The track has been completely resurfaced for this year which, together with strong winds blowing sand onto the asphalt, promise to present a new challenge for the new-for-2017 Hankook tyres.
Head of Audi motorsport Dieter Gass: “We’ll have to wait and see if and how the new tarmac will impact the performance of the tyres. Zandvoort has always been a tyre-killing track, but in the past we coped well with that. The track should suit us. But the DTM is unpredictable.”
Audi Sport has dominated so far, and leads the manufacturers’ table on 421 points, 80 ahead of Mercedes AMG and 113 ahead of BMW Motorsport. The Ingolstadt-based marque heads to Zandvoort confident of their chances, having won nine of the 18 DTM races held at the Dutch track.
The six Mercedes AMG C63 DTMs will start the Dutch weekend as the heaviest cars on track, with a performance weight of 1,127.5kg, five more than the Audi RS 5 DTMs. The BMW M4 DTMs will be the lightest on 1,117.5kg.
Timetable
Friday 18th August
17:00 – Free Practice 1
Saturday 19th August
09:45 – Free Practice 2
11:40 – Qualifying for Race 1
14:48 – Race 1 (55 minutes plus one lap)
Sunday 20th August
08:50 – Free Practice 3
12:00 – Qualifying for Race 2
15:18 – Race 2 (55 minutes plus one lap)
