Photo: BMW Press Club

Marco Wittmann disappointed with result despite rejoining title fight

Marco Wittmann bounced back from yesterday’s disaster for BMW Motorsport to take his M4 DTM to the podium at the Nürburgring, scoring important championship points to jump to fourth position in the standings.

The reigning champion had qualified on pole position for the race, but was slow off the line, losing the lead to Mercedes’ Paul di Resta. Wittmann overtook the Scot on the 15th lap, feeling comfortable with the car: “We had a good first stint. Just before the pit stop, I was able to overtake Paul di Resta, move back into first place and extend my lead.”

Wittmann pitted from the lead, but was quickly caught by Mercedes’ Robert Wickens. The BMW driver attacked the Canadian again nine laps later, but the duo came together at Turn 1, with Wittmann sustaining damage, after which the reigning champion couldn’t keep up, also losing to di Resta to cross the finish line in third place.

“After the stop, I was behind Wickens. I started to try and overtake at turn one, but we touched. My car was damaged and I had some graining on the front tyres. I wasn’t able to maintain the pace. It is a bit disappointing to finish third after starting from pole position but at the end of the day, we scored some important points,” added Wittmann.

Wittmann is fourth in the championship table, 21 points behind the leader, Audi driver Mattias Ekström.

BMW Motorsport also managed to recover after struggling on Saturday to place five cars in the top ten and is still third in the manufacturers’ table, having closed the gap by 100 points to leading Audi Sport.

“Marco Wittmann probably could not have done better than third place today under the given circumstances. We got five BMWs in the top ten and scored some good points. Overall it was a hard race, sometimes too hard. We now need to concentrate fully on Spielberg,” added Motorsport Director Jens Marquardt.