Photo: BMW Motorsport

Marco Wittmann: “The safety car ruined our race”

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BMW Team RMG driver Marco Wittmann says he could have fought for the victory in the first race of the Hockenheim DTM season finale, but that the safety car intervention ruined his chances of overtaking already crowned champion René Rast.

“The undercut would have worked if it wasn’t for the safety car,” said Wittmann to TouringCarTimes. “We could have won the race, but the safety car destroyed the advantage we had with the warmed up tyres, and that’s the reason why we ended up in P2.”

Wittmann qualified in second place but lost one place to Audi’s Mike Rockenfeller during the opening lap.

“The weekend went very well and we were looking quite competitive,” Wittmann said. “We had good pace and we were looking for a good result.”

The team RMG driver regained second position on lap 12, changing tyres on lap 17. Rast mirrored his move a lap later, but the safety car was called into action to recover Philipp Eng’s BMW M4 DTM.

Wittmann overtook Rast for the race lead on lap 24, but was overtaken by the Audi driver on the following lap, finally settling for second place.

“I had one chance but I think was more for show than having a real chance,” added the 29-year-old. “The gap was constant but not enough.”

“Tomorrow the forecast is of rain for the qualifying and the race, so I think we have a good chance. It would be nice to finish the season with a victory,” added Wittmann.

Wittmann is the second most successful driver this season, with four victories and four pole positions. Still he struggled to hang onto the fight for the title and also lost the runner-up spot to Audi’s Nico Müller.

“We struggled during the second half of the season and we have to analyse and understand why did that happen,” said Wittmann.

Asked if he had any particular wish list for BMW Motorsport next season, the Team RMG driver replied: “Just that we are competitive all weekends. We’ve had some good weekends with four victories and some pole positions. The car was at some stages good and strong, but at other times we struggled, so my wish is that we have a strong package all race weekends and we can fight against them (Audi).”