Philipp Eng hopes to improve understanding of tyres to become more competitive

BMW Motorsport Team RBM driver Philipp Eng showed blistering pace in qualifying to score pole position at Hockenheim for the second race. But his performance withered in the race, with the Austrian finishing in fourth place after being unable to withstand the attacks from Audi drivers Nico Müller and Robin Frijns.

A faulty sensor prevented the Austrian from running in the qualifying session yesterday, forcing him to start from the pitlane. And Eng didn’t think he would be competitive today.

“No, I didn’t expect to score the pole position like that, especially in this field with all these high quality drivers you can never expect to be on pole,” the Team RBM driver told TouringCarTimes.

“When I went over the line I thought ‘ok, that was a good lap’. I had the speed and the tyre and everything worked together and I was really happy with the performance there.”

Eng, now driving his second season in the DTM, is still looking for his first victory in the German series.

“Hopefully this is representative of what we can expect this season. If I’ve learnt one thing in DTM is that it’s always unpredictable, so you are as good as your last race or your last qualifying, so you have to carry this mindset and execute the job as I did today and see if it’s successful, so let’s see if it works out next time,” said Eng.

The race pace of the BMWs was not as fast as the Audis in dry conditions at Hockenheim, but Eng believes the Bavarian manufacturer can close the gap in the coming races.

“Especially in the last 5-6 laps of the race our pace wasn’t as good. I think that our friends from Ingolstadt are still a bit better than us, but I have a lot of trust in our guys and they can fix this for the next event,” said Eng.

“I think it was clear that they had a pace advantage over us. We need to analyse what exactly happened but it’s a one-make tyre, so you have to make the most of it.”

One of the main issues under the new Class One regulations was tyre wear, a problem that Eng already experienced last year and that wasn’t any better for him this weekend.

“It all goes together, it’s very difficult to always understand what happens, why you have degradation or not. We did a lot of work on this issue over the winter, me and my crew as we were struggling with this last year, and I need to trust my guys to tell me what I need to do to fix this issue,” said Eng.

After the first round of the 2019 season Eng is eighth in the drivers’ championship with 15 points.