Lucas Auer blames braking problem for Saturday’s woes

Mercedes AMG’s Lucas Auer is starting his second season in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters this weekend. The Austrian had an eventful day today at Hockenheim, with several issues preventing him from scoring a points’ result.

Problems started at the morning’s second free practice session. “The car has been good and had good pace, but I had a problem with the brakes, and I went off at the last corner,” Auer told TouringCarTimes. “Unfortunately, I damaged the car and couldn’t go out in qualifying, but the team did a great job and got the car ready for the race.”

Starting from the pitlane didn’t stop Auer from being competitive once the lights went green: “In the race I was quick, could avoid problems and recover positions. I even was in the points at some stage! But I picked up some debris on the track and my air cooling system was blocked, so I had to come in. Then we saw that the engine temperature had gone up a lot, so we had to retire, but I’m confident we will have it sorted for tomorrow.”

The season has just started, but there already are indications of the level of teams and cars. Auer thinks he is in for a good season: “I’m happy I’m being more competitive. We did a lot of testing in the winter and the car is better than last year, so I hope I can improve as a driver and get better results. It’s a long season, but I think that I will be scoring points and maybe even later in the year I can even fight for the podiums.”

Lucas Auer repeats formation with Team Mücke, but with a new team-mate in Christian Vietoris. The Austrian thinks the partnership will be a positive one: “Working with Chris is good, he’s a really cool guy and we get on very well. Also, it’s a bonus to be able to speak in German directly to your team-mate, so that’s an added bonus. I think we can work very well together.”