DTM – Double podium with Edoardo Mortara and Daniel Juncadella

Spectacular finish to second race at the Norisring season highlight as Edoardo Mortara (SILBERPFEIL Energy Mercedes-AMG Motorsport) and Daniel Juncadella (Mercedes-AMG Motorsport REMUS) both take podiums for the Mercedes-AMG Motorsport DTM Team. Edoardo secured his second podium finish of the weekend in a race that was hard-fought from the very start to the chequered flag. He took the win on Saturday and then went out today to notch up his fourth podium finish at the Norisring and the 25th of his DTM career to date.

His team-mate Daniel Juncadella was delighted earlier this morning when he secured his maiden pole position in the DTM in the second qualifying session, racking up Mercedes-AMG’s 20th pole position at Nuremberg’s street circuit and the 132nd of the brand’s 30-year history in the DTM. He led the race for a while after that and booked his maiden podium in the touring car series in his 64th DTM race.

The brand with the three-pointed star produced a strong team showing as they had done in the first race on Saturday with five drivers bringing their Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTMs home to a points-scoring finish in both races. Apart from Edoardo and Daniel, Lucas Auer (SILBERPFEIL Energy Mercedes-AMG Motorsport), Paul Di Resta (Mercedes-AMG Motorsport REMUS) and Pascal Wehrlein (Mercedes-AMG Motorsport PETRONAS) also took points on Sunday, taking the chequered flag in fifth, sixth and ninth position respectively. Pascal moved nine places up the field during the 68-lap race.

Gary Paffett (Mercedes-AMG Motorsport PETRONAS) finished the eighth round of the season in 13th place following a tough race with plenty of scraps and with 99 points, still leads the drivers’ standings. Edoardo Mortara (93 points), who is six points behind Gary, is now second in the standings. Two more Mercedes-AMG Motorsport DTM drivers – Paul Di Resta (fifth) and Lucas Auer (sixth) – are in the championship Top Six. Team SILBERPFEIL Energy Mercedes-AMG Motorsport on 165 points lead the DTM team classification by 20 points. Mercedes-AMG (421 points) are in first place in the Constructors’ Championship, 108 points up on BMW (313 points).

The next race weekend: Zandvoort’s legendary dune circuit will this year be the venue for the race meeting that marks the half-way stage in the 2018 DTM season. Drivers will contest Race 9 and 10 there, July 13th – 15th.

Comments after the race

Edoardo Mortara (31, Italy):

• P2
• Car number: 48
• Team: SILBERPFEIL Energy Mercedes-AMG Motorsport
• Car: Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM

“Incredible! First the victory yesterday and now the P2 today. It’s brilliant. Especially after such an extremely thrilling race. I started from P5 and did my pit stop after the first lap. It was certainly difficult with the tyres, but the car was much better today and everything went well. But it is still too early to think about the championship. There are still a lot of race weekends to go. This weekend has been great, and I hope that I will experience many more such days this season. Then we’ll see. Congratulations also to Marco (Wittmann). I gave it everything I’d got, but he did a great job. Seen from the perspective of our team, it’s been a great weekend.”

Daniel Juncadella (26, Spain):

• P3
• Car number: 23
• Team: Mercedes-AMG Motorsport REMUS
• Car: Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM

“I am definitely satisfied with the way today went. I finally got my first pole position, and of all weekends, it was at the Norisring, one of the highlights of the year. After so many years, it was a great feeling. My car was incredibly strong today, so I have to thank my entire team. On this track, anything can happen in the race. It is easy to overtake here, and at the same time it is not easy to get the tyres up to temperature. After my stop, I had some difficulties and had to surrender the lead to Marco (Wittmann). He was very fast, and Edo was also very good. Towards the end, my pace got better again, but the last ten laps always involve a bit of risk. I’m satisfied with P3, but next time, I will hopefully be right at the front.”

Lucas Auer (23, Austria):

• P5
• Car number: 22
• Team: SILBERPFEIL Energy Mercedes-AMG Motorsport
• Car: Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM

“Things went really well for me after the start and I was in second place, so I don’t think that P5 in the end is a satisfactory result. On the other hand, every point is important. It’s better to have the points for fifth place rather than nothing. We must now carefully analyse the weekend’s data. I was relatively happy yesterday with seventh place, as I struggled a bit in the race, but my form was better today and I had the pace for a decent result. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite enough. Still, my form was on the up this weekend and that’s something that is not easy to achieve in the DTM. My team did a mega job and worked hard throughout.”

Paul Di Resta (32, Scotland):

• P6
• Car number: 3
• Team: Mercedes-AMG Motorsport REMUS
• Car: Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM

“It was all a bit up and down today. We didn’t get everything out of the situation with our P6 today, but I’m not a big fan of this track. Consequently, it’s good to see that we held our own in the championship. I’m now looking forward to getting back onto permanent tracks which perhaps suit me better. All in all, it’s been a reasonable but not a great weekend for me. Sometimes in racing, it’s important to score points in every race – that can make all the difference, and that’s what we’ve done so far this season.”

Pascal Wehrlein (23, Germany):

• P9
• Car number: 94
• Team: Mercedes-AMG Motorsport PETRONAS
• Car: Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM

“Unfortunately, that was another difficult day for me. I was still having the same problems as yesterday. In today’s race, I had some luck with the strategy. Many thanks to my team – they did a very good job in that regard. It enabled me to score a few more points. All the same, though, it’s been an unsatisfactory weekend for me. Now we need to evaluate the data and see how we can improve so that we can compete with the others at Zandvoort in terms of speed.”

Gary Paffett (37, England):

• P13
• Car number: 2
• Team: Mercedes-AMG Motorsport PETRONAS
• Car: Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM

“That race wasn’t up to much, unfortunately. The start was OK still, but then I came up against some cars that had already stopped. My pit stop wasn’t perfect, and I came back out behind Timo. I tried to overtake him several times, but he kept forcing me into the wall, which practically ended my race. To some extent, I don’t think that was actually very fair of Timo, and I never expected it after the great race we had at Hockenheim.”

Ulrich Fritz, Head of Mercedes-AMG Motorsport DTM:

“What an incredible finish! That’s precisely why we love the Norisring so much. Unfortunately, we did not make it a 20th victory in Nuremberg today, but it was certainly a great race for the spectators. All in all, it has been a very successful weekend for us. Congratulations to the whole team.”

Race results: Top Ten

Drivers‘ Championship

Manufacturers‘ Championship

Teams‘ Championship

Press release Mercedes-AMG