René Rast cruises to Race 1 victory at Zolder
Audi Team Rosberg’s René Rast completed a dominant lights-to-flag victory in the opening DTM race at Zolder ahead of title rivals Robin Frijns and Nico Müller.
Rast struck late on in the morning qualifying session to secure pole position and duly cruised to a third win of the season by a margin of nearly 20 seconds.
The result means that Rast, who also claimed the three points for pole, has taken 13 points out of Müller’s championship lead, with Frijns also reducing the margin by four points.
Off the line, Rast made a superb start and led comfortably into the first corner, while Timo Glock slipped behind the fast-starting Frijns as he moved up to second.
Glock also dropped behind Mike Rockenfeller at Turn 2, but reclaimed a net third when Rockenfeller suffered a front-right mis-hap at his pit-stop.
Rast’s early half-a-second advantage was extended to just over a second as Frijns appeared to settle in for the opening stint.
The defending champion was largely at ease both before and after his pit-stop, rejoining comfortably in the lead as Frijns had to fend off the attentions of title rival, and points leader, Nico Müller.
Frijns made his stop two laps before Rast, and although the Dutchman only spent 6.8s in his pit box, he fell behind Glock as he got his tyres up to temperature.
Glock made a decisive move down the inside of the chicane to grab the place, which forced Frijns to shortcut the corner. Frijns then had to defend heavily from Müller for the rest of the lap, leaving Rast to make quick his escape.
Frijns got back ahead of Glock, making use of his fresher tyres despite a botched manoeuvre under braking for Turn 12.
The Audi driver eventually dived past the BMW at Turn 1 with just over 20 minutes of the race remaining.
Indeed, the BMWs fell by the wayside somewhat in the closing stages as Glock was overhauled by Müller, who pulled off a superb move around the outside of the final chicane to claim third.
Further back, Harrison Newey made it by Marco Wittmann who eventually cruised into retirement with seven minutes left with a gear selection issue.
Off the podium, Glock finished fourth ahead of Newey and Sheldon van der Linde. Ferdinand Habsburg finished seventh in the WRT Audi, while Rockenfeller recovered to finish eighth.
Philipp Eng was ninth for Team RBM BMW, while Loïc Duval, who had to serve a five-second penalty for a jump-start, completed the top 10.
Next up for DTM is the second qualifying session, which is scheduled to take place at 10:40 CEST tomorrow.
