Mortara wins first race at Norisring and takes the lead in DTM

  • Edoardo Mortara

Edoardo Mortara won the first DTM race at Norisring and became the championship leader. The Audi driver, with a bit luck, scored his second win this year, outpacing another Audi driver Jamie Green and Paul Di Resta in Mercedes.

Vietoris started from pole

Mercedes driver Christian Vietoris won the pole position while two Audis, of Mattias Ekstrom and Jamie Green, were behind him, ready to jump upfront right from the start. Another Mercedes driver and championship leader Robert Wickens started from the 4th position while Bruno Spengler at 5th was the best-placed BMW driver at the start of the race.

Christian Vietoris

Christian Vietoris

Vietoris defended well Ekstrom’s early attacks but Green dropped down to 5th after being overtaken by Wickens and Edoardo Mortara. Soon after Mercedes had 1-2 on the top of the grid after Wickens past over Ekstrom but the gaps between the cars at the top still were very small as the top 5 were within two seconds.

Accident curtailed the race outcome

The things have changed when top three cars were involved in an accident. Ekstrom tried to overtake Wickens at turn 1 but hit Vietoris who spun, so Mortara took the lead ahead of Green and Paul Di Resta. Wickens’ and Ekstrom’s cars were badly damaged and they retired from the race. The safety car was deployed and the gaps between the cars were tightened 18 minutes before the end.

Paul Di Resta Mercedes

Paul Di Resta, Norisring

Top 3 standings remained unchanged until the end. Mortara earned his 5th DTM triumph, only 0.5s ahead of Green while Di Resta was 0.9s behind the winner. Marco Wittmann in BMW finished 4th at the shortest track on the calendar while Bruno Spengler was 5th. Unlucky Vietoris collected only one point after he has finished at the 10th place.


Check the full results at SnapLap results page!


The second DTM race at Norisring will go on Sunday 13:10 CET,

Photo: dtm.com

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