Lucas Auer wins at the Nürburgring as mid-race rain mixes it up

Lucas Auer took his third victory of the season at the Nürburgring for Mercedes, as the changing weather conditions wreaked havoc for his opponents.

The cars ventured on to the grid on slick tyres as the sun was shining at the Nürburgring, but rain started falling just 13 minutes before the formation lap, with the entire field changing to wet tyres for the start.

At the start of the race, Marco Wittmann was slow off his grid spot and was overtaken by fellow BMW driver Augusto Farfus, who launched into the lead followed by Auer and his fellow Mercedes drivers Paul di Resta and Robert Wickens.

Meanwhile, championship leader Mattias Ekström was recovering positions from 12th on the grid, and was up to seventh place by lap five, as heavy rain began to fall again on the track.

Mercedes’ Gary Paffett set the fastest lap of the race on lap ten, quickly closing the gap to team-mate Maro Engel. Engel was fighting with Audi’s René Rast, with both coming together at Turn 2 two laps later, and Paffett overtaking both and then disappeared off into the distance, with BMW’s Maxime Martin as his next target.

Lap 16 saw BMW’s Tom Blomqvist and Audi’s Mike Rockenfeller and Nico Müller the first to change to slick tyres, followed by Wittmann and Paffett the following lap. Martin would be next, losing the position to Paffett on his out lap.

Ekström and race leader Farfus then pitted for wets, but their tyre change was ill-timed as it immediately started raining again, with Martin the first to get caught out in the rain as he hit the barrier at Turn 1. Farfus lost a position to Paffett, whose slicks were up to temperature as the Brazilian had just come out of the pits, but the mistake was soon clear as all the slick-shod drivers were now struggling, and were five seconds a sector slower than those on wet tyres. Farfus came back into the pits on lap 21, switching back to wets, with his team apologising for the error.

Both Auer and Wickens made their mandatory stops and pitted for wets at the end of lap 24, as Ekström came in after asking his team to change back to wet tyres again. Di Resta also pitted three laps later, undercutting Auer in the fight for the lead of the race after the Austrian went wide at Turn 4.

Edouardo Mortara overtook his Mercedes team-mate, causing Auer to lose ground to di Resta, despite not having completed his compulsory pit stop.

The final laps were dominated by the three-way battle between the Mercedes of di Resta, Auer and Wickens, with the Scot letting the Austrian through on the penultimate lap to ade the Austrian’s championship battle, allowing Auer to take his third victory of the season, with di Resta and Wickens completing an all-Mercedes podium.

Maro Engel was fourth, with Mercedes locking out the top four positions, and was followed by the two Audis of René Rast and Jamie Green. Mortara was seventh, with Farfus managing to climb back to eighth and was the best-placed BMW, followed by team-mate Wittmann. Paffett braved it to the end on slick tyres to take tenth place.

Despite not scoring any points after finishing in 15th, Ekström still leads the championship on 128 points, followed by Auer with 127 and Rast on 124.