After taking pole position earlier today, Rene Rast celebrates his first victory of the season. A dominant race again for Audi with Sheldon van der Linde finishing as the best BMW in sixth.
Starting from pole, Rast led the field through the first corner. Though, behind, it was Mueller with a better start compared to Robin Frijns – who started from second on the grid. Despite his excellent start, Rast was unable to shake Mueller, meaning the Swiss driver overtook him on lap four, using his DRS on Kemmel straight. But Rast never quite let his Audi rival out of his sight.
On lap 13 Rast started to get pressure from Frijns behind. Frijns tried to make a move but Rast just managed to hold on before making his mandatory pitstop at the end of that lap. One lap later, leader of the race Mueller made his stop, which was a second faster than Rast’s. He rejoined the track just behind Wittmann, who had not pitted yet. Mueller managed to pass Wittman almost immediately. However, Rast ended up stuck behind the BMW driver and lost time. Once he got passed, he slowly started closing the gap to Mueller again.
Rast made the move for the lead along the Kemmel straight on lap 21. Mueller kept last year’s champion honest though and Rast was unable to create a gap. The pair kept fighting until the finish line. In the end, Rast prevented Mueller from taking his second victory of the weekend and crossed the line in the first place, just 0.4 seconds ahead. After his first career pole yesterday and his bad luck in the race, Robin Frijns completed the podium, securing Audi’s second podium lockout.
Rast commented: ‘It was a very good race, much better than yesterday when I was fighting with the tires’. He continues: ‘We improved a few things on the car, but I also worked on my driving. We got our reward for this today. It was a cool fight with Nico [Mueller] and Robin [Frijns] – fair and good. Just the way it should be. The racing with DRS and Push-to-Pass in DTM is awesome’.
Finishing fourth and fifth is another pair of Audi drivers. After starting from eighth, Jamie Green climbed up to fourth with Audi Team Phoenix’s Rockenfeller finishing fifth. Rockenfeller was on his way to fourth place, but six laps before the finish he lost out to Green at La Source.
Image Credit: DTM Media
Best of the BMW’s today is Sheldon van der Linde. Unfortunately, the South African racer suffered engine issues in yesterday’s race. Today, however, he finished sixth. It does show though that BMW is still struggling compared to Audi, not completely able to match their pace. Finishing seventh is Loic Duval. He was one of the few drivers whose qualifying time got cancelled due to track limits meaning the Frenchman had to start from 13th on the grid.
Completing the top 10 are BMW drivers Lucas Auer, Jonathan Aberdein and Marco Wittmann. A late pitstop strategy for Wittmann saw him running as high as third during the race. Unfortunately, the gamble didn’t pay off.
Philipp Eng finished just outside the points in 11th, followed by the highest-placed rookie – Fabio Scherer. The other two rookies struggled again with Robert Kubica crossing the line in 14th and a DNF for Harrison Newey. The Briton was handed a drive-through penalty for causing a collision with Aberdein on lap one. Then, on lap 13 he pulled into the pits with a technical issue on the car. Ferdinand Habsburg finished last, being the only driver to make two pitstops.
After the first race weekend, it is Mueller who leads the championship with 46 points. Rene Rast is second in the standings with 39 points, and Green third on 30. The next outing for the championship is at the Lausitzring from the 14th to 16th of August.
