Photo: Audi Mediacenter

Nico Müller: “The safety car f***ed our race”

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Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline’s Nico Müller was “surprised” and unhappy about the safety car intervention in today’s race at Hockenheim, just as Marco Wittmann.

The DTM sporting regulations states that pit stops cannot be completed whilst the safety car is deployed. Team Abt Sportsline had scheduled Müller’s pit stop for the end of lap 19, in order to give the Swiss, who started from eleventh on the grid, a chance to recover ground in the closing stages.

“We obviously stopped during the safety car, because the safety car came out just after René (Rast) and Marco (Wittmann) pitted and pretty much that was the end of our race, because I was the only car who hadn’t pitted,” Müller told TouringCarTimes.

“Without that, we had a chance to fight for a podium so, when you lose 38 seconds, which is what a pit stop takes and what the others gained on us, you have to gamble and we decided to go for new tyres during the safety car, and then I was on P5,” added the Swiss. “I came back to P3 and everything worked well, but we knew we had to make another stop and that broke our neck. The only factor was the safety car timing.”

Müller expressed his surprise at seeing a safety car deployed without any prior warning: “This was the first time I have seen a safety car coming out without seeing any yellow flag before. I didn’t even see the car parked there because he was in a safe place. I didn’t see any issue.

“And also the team thought that there is no need to bring the safety car when there isn’t a yellow flag. So yes, it was surprising, it f***ed up our race and it cost us a podium.”

The DMSB issued an explanation of the reasoning behind the late use of the safety car:

“The race director has reviewed the use of the rescue car again, because the TV perspective has presented a slightly distorted image. Eng was standing a few metres in front of the barrier opening but could not be moved backwards after a report from the control centre. Then a DMSB rescue vehicle was sent, so the use of the safety car was necessary.”