After a double dose of bad luck in Saturday’s opening race and Sunday morning’s qualifying session, René Rast rolled the strategical dice and scored spectacularly to take his first DTM race victory of the 2019 season.
In Sunday’s race at Hockenheim, the German amply demonstrated why he has been feted as one of this year’s title favourites, blending guile and nerve to move through the field from 16thon the grid. He benefited from a mid-race Safety Car intervention to make an early pit-stop for fresh rubber, only just caught the field for the restart, and then pushed hard before making a second stop that helped him consolidate his advantage over the field.
Sometimes up to 1.5 seconds quicker than his rivals throughout the race, he also used his DRS to overtake one opponent after another. Nico Müller And Robin Frijns also made it onto the podium after a thrilling dice with pole-sitter Philipp Eng.
For Eng, Sunday was a worthy reward after a difficult and disappointing Saturday. The Austrian had been stranded on the track during Saturday’s qualifying session with an engine sensor issue. But, as the sunshine returned, so did his good fortune.
In the morning’s qualifying session, Eng claimed a dominant pole position, made an incendiary start and led during the first stint. After the mandatory pit-stop, however, he ceded positions to Audi drivers Rast, Müller and Frijns, but came home fourth, the best-placed BMW driver of the day.
Aston Martin also maintained much of the promising momentum it had gathered during Saturday’s qualifying and race sessions. Paul Di Resta dived into the pits just before the Safety Car was deployed and benefited from an ideal track position as a result. From lap 24 onwards, the Scot racked up the very first miles in the lead for DTM’s newest manufacturer in the DTM. Di Resta also opted for a two-stop strategy and finished in a quietly impressive seventh place as a result.