With the penultimate race weekend of the season at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, the battle for the DTM title is entering its decisive stage.
In the first encounter on Friday afternoon, the drivers from Audi and Mercedes-AMG ended up in the top positions. Audi’s Jamie Green topped the time sheets with the fastest time of 1m23.267s. “That was a good start into the race weekend,” British driver Green was happy after the 30 minutes’ session.
“This was a perfectly normal Friday. We did long runs to get into the rhythm and we tried to find a set-up for the race.”
With his Mercedes-AMG, local hero Lucas Auer was only 24 hundredths of a second slower with a time of 1m23.291s. “First of all, we have to analyse free practice. Here at the Red Bull Ring, the lap times are always very closely together. Everyone is looking for the perfect balance. Tomorrow is when the cards will be put on the table,” the runner-up from the drivers’ standings says.
René Rast (Audi/1m23.352s), Nico Müller (Audi/1m23.387s) and Gary Paffett (Mercedes-AMG/1m23.485s) rounded out the top five of the classification. With a personal best time of 1m23.768s, Maxime Martin ended up ninth as the best-placed BMW driver. Audi’s Mike Rockenfeller had bad luck as he had to park his car in the pits due to a gearbox problem after only one lap.
For the 18 DTM drivers, action starts in earnest on Saturday at 11.40 hrs. In the weekend’s first qualifying session, the starting grid positions for the 15th race of the season will be determined. The race starts at 14.45 hrs.