In second free practice early Saturday morning, Mercedes-AMG driver Lucas Auer posted the fastest lap time of the weekend so far. The runner-up in the DTM drivers’ standings completed his lap of the 2.3 kilometres long Norisring street circuit in 47.814 seconds.

Points’ leader René Rast followed in second place with his Audi, having set a time of 47.957 seconds. With Gary Paffett (48.006 seconds), another Mercedes-AMG driver followed in third from Audi drivers Mike Rockenfeller (48.009 seconds) and Nico Müller (48.089 seconds). 

In first free practice on the day before, three BMW drivers ranked among the top four, but this time, only Bruno Spengler (48.090 seconds) as the fastest driver from yesterday made it into the top ten, he ended up sixth. Once again, the field was very closely matched. Classified last, Maxime Martin (BMW) had a time of 46.601 seconds, only 787 thousandths of a second down on the fastest time.

“Generally, I am happy with P2. We have an upward learning curve. Compared to yesterday, we have made some changes to the set up and it worked out better straight away. However, it is only a trend, it doesn’t say too much. It is more important to be up front after qualifying,” René Rast commented.