DTM: Martin wins race 1 at Nurburgring
BMW driver Maxime Martin is the winner of DTM race 1 at Nurburgring. Belgian clinched his first victory this season and second in his career in front of Audi driver Edoardo Mortara and championship leader Pascal Wehrlein in the Mercedes.
Lucas Auer in the Mercedes had pole position and was followed by Maxime Martin in the BMW, while Pascal and Bruno Spengler started from row two. But, Auer lost first place just after the start and dropped to seventh. Maxime Martin was on top despite an accident with Wehrlein, and was followed by Spengler and Edoardo Mortara.
After leaving turn 1, two Audis with Miguel Molina and Jamie Green had a contact which forced them to retire as their cars were crashed. Their collision also caused contact between Tom Blomqvist and Daniel Juncadella who spun, but left without serious damage. Safety car was deployed and soon after, race was stopped for 15 minutes.
After the restart, less than 30 minutes remained for proper racing at Nurburgring, but nothing spectacular happened. Martin was setting the fastest times lap by lap and had solid advantage, while on the back of the grid Timo Scheider retired due to mechanical problems, and soon after, Tom Blomqvist did the same.
But, with 13 minutes to go, Mortara managed to overtake Spengler whose BMW was damaged and Wehrlein also profited from that move going up to third. Spengler’s car was seriously damaged, but he tried to do his best for two laps. Finally, he was forced to retire after starting to lose parts of his car.
Martin won 2.5s ahead of Mortara and 2.9s ahead of Wehrlein. Gary Paffet in the Mercedes was fourth, Maximilian Gotz and Lucas Auer were fifth and sixth respectively, while Marco Wittmann, Robert Wickens, Antonio Felix da Costa and Mattias Ekstrom scored the remaining points.
