Mattias Ekström heads Audi 1-2-3 in Austria to his first win of 2017
Audi Sport dominated today’s race at the Red bull Ring, sweeping the podium with Mattias Ekström winning for the first time this season and getting a step closer to his third DTM crown.
At the start, Jamie Green made his pole position count, taking the lead followed by fellow Audi drivers Nico Müller and Ekström. Mercedes’ Robert Wickens climbed to fourth on the opening lap, while team-mate Gary Paffett and BMW’s Tom Blomqvist pitted at the end of the first lap.
Müller opened the door for Ekström to take second place on lap two. Mercedes’ Lucas Auer and BMW’s Augusto Farfus came together after Turn 2, with the Brazilian going off track and forced to pit at the end of the lap.
Positions remained stable until lap nine, when Auer overtook team-mate Paul di Resta for ninth position, as Audi’s René Rast started pressuring BMW’s Marco Wittmann to challenge for fifth position, with both closing the gap to Wickens. Rast tried to overtake Wittmann at Turn 4 on lap 11, with the two drivers almost colliding, and the Audi driver backing off.
Lap 12 saw Wickens, Wittmann and BMW’s Maxime Martin changing tyres, with the trio managing to get out of the pits just ahead of Paffett and Audi’s Mike Rockenfeller. Auer pitted a lap later, with Ekström following on the following lap.
Rast and Müller were next to pit, undercutting Wickens and Ekström respectively. However, on cold tyres, Wickens soon caught Rast, with both colliding and the Canadian reporting damage to his left rear tyre. Wittmann took advantage of the incident to get past Rast and attack Wickens.
Race leader Green pitted at the end of lap 16, with his crew performing a slow tyre change, but still managed to maintain the lead ahead of Ekström.
Wittmann went wide at Turn 2 on lap 17, with Martin, chased by Rast, guarding his back. The Audi driver hit the Belgian at Turn 3, spinning and falling to the back of the pack.
Ekström, still with nine DRS activations with seven minutes left on the clock, slowly closed the gap to leading Green. The Swede braked very late to overtake the Briton at Turn 2 on lap 36.
The positions remained stable until the end of the race, with Ekström taking his first win of the season ahead of Green and Müller, making it a 1-2-3 result for Audi. The Swede has extended his championship lead, and is now on 162 points, 28 ahead of Green and 31 ahead of Auer.
Wickens limped to take fourth position, followed by the BMWs of Wittmann and Martin, with Rockenfeller, Auer and Mortara on tow. BMW’s Timo Glock completed the top ten.
