Marco Wittmann looking to end “difficult season” with a victory

BMW Motorsport driver Marco Wittmann was left out of the fight for the title after a difficult day at Hockenheim, when he was unable to score any points in Race 1. The outgoing champion pointed at difficulties in getting to grips with the new technical regulations as one of the hurdles he had to overcome this season.

“I have to say that the season started very badly for us,” Wittmann said to TouringCarTimes. “The first three weekends were very difficult, as we took longer than the rest to understand the new car, the way to set it up and also how to adapt our driving to it.”

Wittmann and BMW were able to remain in contention despite the discrete start to the season, with the first victory for the Bavarian team at Norisring. “It’s also very positive to see how we came back and we recovered well and had good weekends afterwards. It was positive to see how we came back on the title fight, which was unthinkable after the first few races of the season.”

Speaking about the end of his title bid, Wittmann said: “It the end, coming here 38 points behind it was clear that it was nearly impossible to recover the distance, so for me this weekend has been more about having fun and trying to just race and relax. We are now out of the championship fight, so we can have more fun tomorrow, whilst the Audi guys quite a bit of pressure.”

Wittmann won Sunday’s race at Zandvoort, though he was excluded afterwards because of a technical infringement. Asked if he would try to get his elusive first victory of the year tomorrow, the Wittmann said: “I always race to win and, as for me, I did win at Zandvoort on the track although I was excluded afterwards. But yes, it would be great to win tomorrow and finish the season on a high, so we can enjoy the winter break even more.”