Lucas Auer confirms fine form with a victory at Lausitzring
Lucas Auer scored his second win of the 2017 DTM season. The Mercedes driver won the race 1 at Lausitzring what is his third victory in the series.
For the second time in 2017 Auer started from pole position. Besides the championship leader in the front row was Robert Wickens, another Mercedes driver while Maxime Martin in BMW and Rene Rast in Audi started from the second row.
Robert Wickens picked his first points in 2017 season
The start of the race was quite unusual because there wasn’t any change in the standings in the two opening laps. Finally, on lap 3, Martin took the 2nd position from Wickens. Soon after Rast lost his position to Timo Glock. Back on the grid, Audi drivers Jamie Green and Mattias Ekstrom decided to pit after just seven minutes in an effort to profit from the unusual move and soon after Bruno Spengler, Augusto Farfus, Marco Wittmann and Mike Rockenfeller did the same.
Wickens was the first of the top 3 who went in the pit but Martin followed him on the next lap to keep the provisional 2nd place. Soon after Auer also pitted and returned to the track in front of his rivals. With 20 minutes remaining, only two Mercedes drivers – Edoardo Mortara and Maro Engel – did not complete a mandatory pit stop and that proved to be a bad decision.
Rene Rast at Lausitzring won his first podium finish in DTM
However, when all drivers did a pit stop, Auer still was leading the race with a big margin to Wickens and Martin. Rene Rast did a great job to take the 3rd position from Martin, eight minutes before the end, and was able to keep that position until the end what is his first podium finish in DTM. Auer won the race with a margin of 3.6s to Wickens who scored his first points in 2017.
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Maxime Martin, Mike Rockenfeller, Gary Paffett, Edoardo Mortara, Mattias Ekstrom, Maro Engel, and Jamie Green also scored points in the first race of the weekend.
DTM race at Lausitzring starts Sunday, 15:18 CET.
Photo: dtm.com
