Hungaroring DTM: Audi's Rene Rast takes maiden win for points lead
Rene Rast's maiden victory in the DTM finale at the Hungaroring sent the Audi driver to the top of the drivers' championship by a single point
Having taken his second straight pole earlier on Sunday, Rast had a superb start to lead the race.
BMW's Marco Wittmann, on the other hand, had a sluggish getaway from second, allowing Audi driver Nico Muller to get past into second.
While the top three initially ran untroubled, a clever strategy from Mattias Ekstrom meant he threw himself into race-winning contention.
Stopping a early as lap three, Ekstrom adopted a similar strategy to his attempt in the Lausitzring's Sunday race - where he had pitted on the first lap to rise from eighth to second.
Again it proved to be a successful strategy, coming out to lead the race as the leading trio of Rast, Muller and Wittmann stopped more than five laps later to change tyres.
Ekstrom was not the only driver to successfully pull off an early stop. BMW's Maxime Martin stopped two laps earlier than the new leader, and was able to jump Muller and Martin to run third having started the race in last place.
From then on Rast spent most of the race shadowing Ekstrom, and he finally made a move with just a handful of minutes to go, going past his Audi stablemate at the first corner.
He couldn't increase the gap afterwards but Rast held on to win, closely followed by Ekstrom.
There was almost an Audi 1-2-3 but Martin was able to keep Muller at bay to deny the weekend's most impressive marque a memorable end.
Muller was consigned to fourth place ahead of Jamie Green, who made two great moves on Paul di Resta and Wittmann for fifth, as the latter's car failed while running sixth with two laps to go.
That promoted the lead Mercedes of Di Resta into sixth, the Mercedes driver followed by Timo Glock and Robert Wickens.
The top 10 was completed by Gary Paffett and Mike Rockenfeller, the latter losing his fifth place on the grid after having to start from the pitlane but making ground up from a first-lap pitstop.
Rockenfeller put Paffett under pressure in the end, but his attempt to overtake resulted in him forcing the Mercedes driver off track, for which he is under investigation.
Apart from Wittmann, Lucas Auer was the only other driver not to finish the race, the erstwhile points leader dropping out of contention with a poor stop and then retiring in the pits.
RESULTS - 35 LAPS:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Rene Rast | Rosberg | Audi | 58m01.592s | - |
2 | Mattias Ekstrom | Abt | Audi | 58m02.633s | 1.041s |
3 | Maxime Martin | RBM | BMW | 58m03.098s | 1.506s |
4 | Nico Muller | Abt | Audi | 58m03.453s | 1.861s |
5 | Jamie Green | Rosberg | Audi | 58m07.364s | 5.772s |
6 | Paul Di Resta | HWA | Mercedes | 58m09.476s | 7.884s |
7 | Timo Glock | RMR | BMW | 58m10.286s | 8.694s |
8 | Robert Wickens | HWA | Mercedes | 58m13.591s | 11.999s |
9 | Gary Paffett | HWA | Mercedes | 58m14.245s | 12.653s |
10 | Mike Rockenfeller | Phoenix | Audi | 58m14.751s | 13.159s |
11 | Edoardo Mortara | HWA | Mercedes | 58m15.222s | 13.630s |
12 | Augusto Farfus | RMG | BMW | 58m16.679s | 15.087s |
13 | Tom Blomqvist | RMR | BMW | 58m17.881s | 16.289s |
14 | Bruno Spengler | RBM | BMW | 58m19.175s | 17.583s |
15 | Maro Engel | HWA | Mercedes | 58m21.420s | 19.828s |
16 | Loic Duval | Phoenix | Audi | 58m40.127s | 38.535s |
17 | Marco Wittmann | RMG | BMW | 54m47.923s | 2 Laps |
- | Lucas Auer | HWA | Mercedes | 38m48.437s | Retirement |
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