Jamie Green masters the rain to victory in Hockenheim race two

Audi Motorsport driver Jamie Green drove masterly under challenging conditions to take his first victory of the 2017 DTM season this afternoon at Hockenheim.

At the start, BMW’s Timo Glock took the lead from pole position, with René Rast slow to get off the grid, being overtaken by fellow Audi drivers Jamie Green and Mike Rockenfeller.

Further back, Robert Wickens tried to overtake Nico Müller, who was also on the inside of fellow Audi driver Loic Duvall. The Canadian pushed the Swiss, with the three cars spinning off at Turn 1. The Mercedes was stuck in the gravel trap, with the safety car being deployed for three laps. Both Duval and Müller managed to return to the pits, change tyres and return to the race.

At the restart, Green got ahead of Glock, who was also overtaken by Lucas Auer and Bruno Spengler. At Turn 2, Rast spun after being hit by Maxime Martin, collecting Augusto Farfus, who managed to continue. The stewards investigated the restart, as Green was ahead of Glock when the red lights went off, handing the Briton a 5-second pit stop penalty for being in an inaccurate position at the restart. Green started lapping consistently fast to build a gap ahead of the pack.

Audi’s Mattias Ekström overtook Spengler for fourth position on lap eight, when it also started raining.

Timo Glock was losing ground, with Edoardo Mortara going through at the Hairpin and the German falling into Spengler’s hands. The Canadian pitted for slicks on lap 13 and struggled with his new tyres on the outlap, falling prey to Rockenfeller, who overtook the Canadian.

Mortara was lapping faster than Ekström, taking third position on lap 15. The Italian, however, spun over the wet kerbs at Turn 1, falling to eighth place.

Lap 18 saw a decisive moment, when the rain got stronger and Marco Wittmann, Paul Di Resta, Gary Paffett and Müller came in to change tyres, with all of them mounting wets. Unfortunately for the Scot, his mechanics had slicks ready, having to get the wets from the garage. This caused Di Resta to lose three places.

Some drivers waited a couple of laps before changing to wets, this caused them to lose ground running on slicks while it was raining heavily. This was the case for Rockenfeller, Glock and Auer, who spun in the outlap, falling to fourth place.

This played into Green’s hands, with the Briton fulfilling his penalty as he went for his tyre change, being able to retain the lead. Paffett overtook Wittmann to take second place, albeit already 14 seconds adrift from Green. Glock took tenth position from Ekström on lap 26. The German also got ahead of Spengler and Mercedes’ Maro Engel to be eighth with two minutes to go.

Green administered his advantage to win the race ahead of Paffett and Wittmann completing the podium.

Auer was fourth, followed by Audi’s Müller, Di Resta, Rockenfeller, BMW drivers Glock and Spengler and Mercedes’ Engel.