Photo: Tamara Aller

Philipp Eng: “I want to win races this season”

Philipp Eng completed a strong race yesterday at Zandvoort to be the best placed BMW driver, also being the ‘best of the rest’ on the grid after Mercedes’ Gary Paffett’s blistering pole position.

The initial stages of the race, however, were difficult for the Austrian, who quickly lost ground against the Briton: “Gary just took off and I had nothing to answer, it was really impressive how quickly he opened a gap,” Eng told TouringCarTimes. “I gave it all I had. But I couldn’t get heat into the tyres. Still, we decided to keep to our strategy instead of bringing our stop forward.”

The Team RBM driver pitted at the end of lap 9, enjoying a better pace with fresh tyres: “Everything changed after the pit stop, I felt the car was extremely good and consistent. I feel the safety car didn’t play in our favour as, before it came out, I was catching di Resta but, after, he had DRS so, if I could have got him before, I could have overtaken him. I still finished P4, which is a good result for us, best BMW, so yes, I’m ok with the result.”

The DTM is taking a four-week break until the next round at Brands Hatch and Eng is among the drivers who hope to take advantage of the lessons learned at Zandvoort to prepare for the British round of the season: “I think both Zandvoort and Brands Hatch are comparable, there are a lot of elevations, so I hope we can bring the momentum and good form from here. I still think it will be a challenge to compete at such an amazing track.”

Eng also evaluated the first half of his rookie season in the series, setting for himself a high target for the remainder five rounds: “I think the season so far has been reasonable, starting four times from the front row, two podiums and a pole position or, well, nearly two as I missed out at Norisring by just one thousandth. I’m fairly happy about how my rookie season has gone so far, but I feel there is more to come. I want to be on the podium more often and I want to win.”

Eng is the third best placed BMW driver in the championship in seventh position with 67 points, 34 shy of the manufacturer’s spearhead Timo Glock.