For the second time this year already, the Austrian national anthem was played after a DTM race. In the Saturday race at the Lausitzring, Lucas Auer scored his second victory of the season. In an impressive way, the only 22-year-old Mercedes-AMG driver had secured the best starting grid position in qualifying and put in a dominant performance in the race, finishing ahead of his fellow Mercedes-AMG driver Robert Wickens and Audi’s René Rast in second and third pace respectively. For Rast, it was his first podium finish in only his sixth DTM race.
« Today, everything simply was spot-on, this was a perfect race, » Auer commented after the finish. « In the early stages of the race, I did everything I could to pull a gap, but I wasn’t too sure whether I would manage. Towards the end of the first stint and then throughout the second stint, I was able to control the race. » Eventually, Auer scored a dominant lights-to-flag victory that was never in doubt, his third win from 38 DTM races.
Unlike first place, the other podium slots at the Lausitzring were hotly contested. With partly different strategies, several drivers got themselves into good positions, not in the least Maxime Martin, who then ended up behind Wickens and Rast, but still was the best-placed BMW driver in fourth. Behind him, Mike Rockenfeller (Audi), Gary Paffett, Edoardo Mortara (both Mercedes-AMG), Mattias Ekström (Audi), Maro Engel (Mercedes-AMG) and Jamie Green (Audi) rounded out the top ten.
In the drivers’ standings, Auer is clearly in the lead with 68 points after three of 18 races. He is already 34 points clear of Paffett in second place. Rockenfeller is third (31 points). Jamie Green, who came to the Lausitz in second place of the standings, has 27 points and dropped back to fourth.
The fourth DTM race of the 2017 season gets underway on Sunday at 15.15 hrs. Prior to that, the starting grid positions will be determined during qualifying from 11.30 hrs.
Press release DTM
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