Miguel Molina took a dominant victory in race one of the DTM finale at Hockenheim as Marco Wittmann increased his championship lead over Edoardo Mortara with a second placed finish as his championship rival finished third after a dazzling recovery drive.
Team tactics played a big role in the race as both BMW and Audi both tried to get their respective championship contenders higher up the field.
At the start of the race Miguel Molina shot off the line to overtake polesitter Antonio Felix Da Costa to take the lead. Behind the Portuguese driver Tom Blomqvist was third with Wittmann fourth. Maxime Martin got an awful start from fifth on the grid and fell all the way back to tenth. Molina lay in seventh. Wittmann and Blomqvist swapped positions at the hairpin with the British driver supposedly bowing down to team orders.
There was soon drama involving Mortara and Glock. The two went into battle on the first lap. Glock diving up the inside of the Italian at the hairpin before the two went side by side in the subsequent corners before it ended a bit messily with Glock being forced wide. Glock soon got revenge though on the third to last corner with the German diving up the inside and forcing Mortara wide taking seventh.
After a brief spell of pressure from Da Costa Molina stormed away with the driver -on his last DTM race weekend- then dropping far off the pace to let Wittmann through at the hairpin. Mortara passed Glock again on lap 15. He caught Glock unawares with a switchback move at the hairpin as the former F1 driver was losing a lot of time behind Farfus.
On the following lap Mortara made light work of Farfus, the Brazilian was forced to succumb to him as his BMW had no DRS and was beaten all ends up on the straight that precedes the hairpin. Mortara who looked unfocused earlier after his first lap confrontation with Glock had suddenly produced some great pace.
Mortara then got past fellow Audi driver Mike Rockenfeller. Rockenfeller let Mortara past after a move on Blomqvist at the hairpin failed to materialise and the 2012 champion backed off on the exit. Blomqvist was his next victim. Blomqvist with his BMW stripped of DRS was beaten for pace on the straight before the hairpin and had no option but to let the charging Mortara through.
Mortara then managed to gain a spot on the podium with an all-or-nothing overtake on Da Costa in the dying moments of the race. Mortara, after whittling away the gap of the BMW driver audaciously dived up the inside of him at the hairpin. The result was very nearly absolute disaster as he broke extremely late and nearly found himself rear-ending Wittmann ahead of him. But that was the margin of error and he timed it perfectly and made it stick.
The race was won by an utterly dominant Miguel Molina with the Spaniard adding to his win at the Lausitzring to make it his second race win of the season. Wittmann came second after being gifted places by Da Costa and Blomqvist. But Edo Mortara really stole the show, salvaging what looked like a complete end to his championship hopes into not too big a blow. We have a decider on our hands on Sunday!
Da Costa came fourth with Rockenfeller fifth and Rene Rast filling in for Mattias Ekstrom came sixth in only his second DTM start after capitalising on the BMWs who were deprived of DRS from a very early stage. Mercedes failed to place any cars in the points highlighting the poor season they have had. Jamie Green has absolutely no chance of winning the title now after finishing a lowly ninth.
