Edoardo Mortara wins season opener in Hockenheim
Edoardo Mortara is the first winner in the 2016 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season. The Italian driver from Audi Sport led a lights-to-flag race to cross the finish line in first position, ahead of Robert Wickens and Nico Müller.
Sunny and hot conditions continued to reign over Hockenheim for the first race of the season. The cars aligned on the starting grid, where they received the performance weights allocated scarcely an hour before the information laps.
Mercedes AMG’s Lucas Auer had to start the race from the pitlane, as he had been unable to take part in the qualifying session due to the damage to his C63 DTM in his free practice 2 incident.
Nico Müller was on pole position but, at the green light, he was slow to go off, with fellow Audi driver Edoardo Mortara taking the first place. Robert Wickens also aligned along the Swiss, but the Team Abt driver managed to prevail at the first corner.
The race was plagued with incidents, which started at the very beginning. At the end of the first lap, Mercedes’ Daniel Juncadella collided with Tom Blomqvist. The Briton spun, and Timo Scheider couldn’t avoid him, damaging the front of his Audi RS 5 DTM and being forced to retire.
There were various incidents, with Jamie Green going off track at the Motodrom entrance after being pushed by another competitor. Adrien Tambay and Tom Blomqvist also collided, with most ruled as racing incidents by the stewards.
Daniel Juncadella and Timo Glock also collided going into the Motodrom, with both cars spinning off the track and being stuck on the gravel trap. This caused the first slow zone of the race. During this period, Jamie Green also pushed BMW’s António Félix Da Costa off the track, with the Briton receiving a ‘drive through’ penalty as a result.
Edoardo Mortara and Robert Wickens had an interesting fight during all race, with the Canadian attacking to reduce the difference, and the Italian responding. This pulse between the Audi and Mercedes drivers would last until the chequered flag.
Lucas Auer was having a good race, confirming the pace shown in the second free practice session. The young Austrian was 13th after half of the race, and had the points scoring positions in his view point.
Gary Paffett was also other of the main stars in the race. The Briton had gone off track in the early stages, was recovering positions and took advantage of a collision between Mattias Ekström and António Félix Da Costa to overtake both and take seventh place. The Swede didn’t give up and initiated his counter attack, which finished when the Audi driver pushed Paffett off the track, ripping part of his right side bodywork. Ekström would receive a black and white flag as a warning.
The Briton managed to recover, but soon the damage on his Mercedes C63 DTM started to take a toll on his performance, with Paffett losing several positions. Lucas Auer had managed to recover to tenth place, but collected a piece of Paffett’s bodywork, blocking one of his air intakes. The Austrian was forced to come into the pitlane to have it removed from his car but, two laps after, had to retire.
The final stages of the race were characterized by Wickens’ attempts to recover the distance to Mortara, and Audi’s Miguel Molina trying to close the gap to Mattias Ekström.
At the chequered flag, Edoardo Mortara won the race, followed by Robert Wickens and Nico Müller on the podium.
Paul Di Resta was fourth after a race-long battle with fellow Mercedes AMG’s driver Christian Vietoris.
Bruno Spengler was sixth and first of the BMW M4 DTMs, followed by team-mates António Félix Da Costa and Maxime Martin. Mattias Ekström and Miguel Molina completed the top ten for Audi Sport.
DTM on track action resumes tomorrow morning at 10:00 CEST for the third free practice session.
