Hockenheim DTM: Mattias Ekstrom denies Jamie Green in Audi sweep
Mattias Ekstrom backed up his first DTM win of 2014 at Zandvoort three weeks ago with a hard-earned victory ahead of Mike Rockenfeller and Jamie Green in the Hockenheim finale
The race came down to a straight fight between Ekstrom and Audi team-mate Jamie Green, although the battle wasn't wheel-to-wheel.
Green, having started on the softer tyre, jumped out to an early lead, and had more than 20 seconds up his sleeve over hards-shod Ekstrom when the cycle of pitstops kicked into life.
At that point Ekstrom switched to the softer, faster rubber and started hunting Green down, the Briton having made the opposite switch.
With six laps to go the race was set to go down to the wire, Ekstrom just 4.8s behind the leader and closing in fast, before a Daniel Juncadella crash essentially decided the result, the deployment of the safety car helping Ekstrom close the gap to virtually nothing.
When the race restarted with two laps to go, Green was powerless to stop both Ekstrom and Mike Rockenfeller - who had been shadowing Ekstrom the whole race - from charging past.
"It's nice to end on a high," said Ekstrom. "I'm pretty happy with this, but I'm humble on the other side because I know how quickly it can change.
"I tried everything this year; being on the top, being on the bottom - and it's quite nice to be on the top, I have to say!"
Green was actually lucky to finish on the podium at all, with Paul di Resta, another to have started on the slower tyre, finishing right on the Audi's tail. But he fell 0.2s of interrupting the Audi podium clean-sweep, which wrapped up the manufacturers' title for the brand ahead of BMW.
Newly-crowned series champion Marco Wittmann finished fifth, and as usual best of the BMWs, after been jumped by di Resta at the restart.
Timo Scheider suffered the same fate as Green in terms of his softs-to-hards strategy. Having looked good for fourth, the Audi driver was swallowed by di Resta and Wittmann at the restart and had to settle for sixth.
Martin Tomczyk and Robert Wickens came from nowhere to storm home on the option tyre to finish seventh and eighth, ahead of polesitter Miguel Molina, whose chances were ruined when he ran wide on the first lap while leading, and Antonio Felix da Costa.
Edoardo Mortara, meanwhile, had a horrible day. Starting third on the hard tyre, which would have ultimately been the right strategy, he made a terrible start and fell back into the midfield. He later retired with crash damage.
Vitaly Petrov and Adrien Tambay also failed to make the finish, although they did get close. The pair crashed out together on the very last lap of the race.
RESULTS - 42 LAPS:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Mattias Ekstrom | Abt | Audi | 1h08m37.604s |
2 | Mike Rockenfeller | Phoenix | Audi | 2.402s |
3 | Jamie Green | Rosberg | Audi | 3.914s |
4 | Paul Di Resta | HWA | Mercedes | 4.163s |
5 | Marco Wittmann | RMG | BMW | 4.962s |
6 | Timo Scheider | Phoenix | Audi | 6.540s |
7 | Martin Tomczyk | Schnitzer | BMW | 7.526s |
8 | Miguel Molina | Abt | Audi | 11.104s |
9 | Antonio Felix da Costa | MTEK | BMW | 12.198s |
10 | Gary Paffett | HWA | Mercedes | 14.781s |
11 | Timo Glock | MTEK | BMW | 15.179s |
12 | Bruno Spengler | Schnitzer | BMW | 15.838s |
13 | Nico Muller | Rosberg | Audi | 15.973s |
14 | Christian Vietoris | HWA | Mercedes | 17.497s |
15 | Joey Hand | RBM | BMW | 17.769s |
16 | Augusto Farfus | RBM | BMW | 23.024s |
17 | Robert Wickens | HWA | Mercedes | 40.344s |
18 | Vitaly Petrov | Mucke | Mercedes | 1 Lap |
19 | Adrien Tambay | Abt | Audi | 1 Lap |
20 | Pascal Wehrlein | HWA | Mercedes | 2 Laps |
21 | Daniel Juncadella | Mucke | Mercedes | 6 Laps |
22 | Edoardo Mortara | Abt | Audi | 11 Laps |
- | Maxime Martin | RMG | BMW | Retirement |
FINAL CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS:
Pos | Driver | Points |
---|---|---|
1 | Marco Wittmann | 156 |
2 | Mattias Ekstrom | 106 |
3 | Mike Rockenfeller | 72 |
4 | Christian Vietoris | 69 |
5 | Edoardo Mortara | 68 |
6 | Martin Tomczyk | 49 |
7 | Maxime Martin | 47 |
8 | Pascal Wehrlein | 46 |
9 | Timo Scheider | 44 |
10 | Jamie Green | 43 |
11 | Bruno Spengler | 42 |
12 | Robert Wickens | 41 |
13 | Augusto Farfus | 39 |
14 | Adrien Tambay | 36 |
15 | Paul Di Resta | 36 |
16 | Timo Glock | 33 |
17 | Miguel Molina | 32 |
18 | Daniel Juncadella | 22 |
19 | Nico Muller | 10 |
20 | Joey Hand | 8 |
21 | Antonio Felix da Costa | 6 |
22 | Gary Paffett | 5 |
23 | Vitaly Petrov | 0 |
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