Photo: Audi Mediacenter

René Rast: “Rockenfeller and Müller deserved the victory today”

Audi Sport Team Rosberg driver René Rast took an unlikely victory today’s Race 1 at the Red Bull Ring, crossing the line in second place but inheriting the win after Mercedes-AMG’s Daniel Juncadella received a drive-through penalty on the last lap.

Rast wasn’t able to make the most of the improving conditions in the qualifying session, with his best lap time deleted due to not respecting the track limits, starting the race from the ninth spot on the grid.

In the race the reigning champion climbed up positions and had an intense fight with BMW’s Marco Wittmann for third place, with the two drivers fighting side-by-side several times and with Wittmann getting a warning for pushing Rast.

“It was a tough race,” said Rast at parc fermé. “I had a fight with Marco (Wittmann) which wasn’t very clean and I lost a lot of positions due to that.”

When Timo Glock parked his BMW on the side of the track with a few minutes to go, it was key to the final outcome of the race, with race leader Juncadella accelerating too early at the restart and Audi drivers Nico Müller and Mike Rockenfeller attacking Wittmann, who fell down the race order.

Juncadella received a drive-through penalty on the last lap and, once Wittmann had been cleared, both Rockenfeller and Müller gave way for Rast to overtake them at the last corner, with Rast crossing the line in second place and taking the win after Juncadella’s penalty was applied: “Obviously, it doesn’t feel like a proper victory,” Rast said after the race.

The reigning champion paid tribute to his fellow Audi drivers: “I won the race but, obviously, Mike and Nico did an outstanding race. They helped me a little bit in terms of the championship. Now it’s getting very close, we are still fighting for the championship, so thanks to them, they both deserved to get the victory today.

“But in view of my chance to continue to keep the championship undecided and thrilling it was of course fantastic that they helped me,” added Rast, who is third in the championship, 42 points behind the leader, Paul di Resta (Mercedes-AMG).

Audi Sport took a 1-2-3 result, with Jamie Green also scoring points in fifth position, with boss Dieter Gass satisfied with an unexpected result for his team: “After qualifying, we hadn’t expected a one-two-three result, nor finishing with four cars in the top five. Today, simply everything played into our hands and we didn’t mind accepting the gifts from our competitors. We made no mistakes, whereas others did. That put us in the position to win the race.”