DTM Hockenheim: Van der Linde crowned champion, Wittmann wins finale

BMW’s Van der Linde arrived into the final race with a meagre two-point lead over Mercedes’ Lucas Auer and a 19-point advantage over departing Audi driver Rene Rast.

With Rast failing to score the win he needed to have any chance of clinching a fourth championship and Auer finishing behind him, a third-place result for van der Linde was enough to secure him a maiden title in the DTM.

At the start of the race, Rast was unable to take full advantage of pole position as he slipped to second behind a fast-charging Wittmann, who leapt from fourth to first on the run down to Turn 1.

Van der Linde dropped to sixth place in his Schubert BMW on the opening lap, but capitalised on Audi duo Marius Zug and Dev Gore battling with each other to overtake both of them into one move into Turn 1.

Further down the pack, Auer quickly propelled his Winward Mercedes inside the top 10 after a truncated qualifying had left him down in 11th place on the grid, but he was still too far behind van der Linde to overhaul him in the championship.

Van der Linde and Auer pitted at the same time on lap 6, with the two drivers returning in the same positions as previously as the South African continued to maintain the edge on his main rival.

Auer was unable to make any in-roads into van der Linde’s lead in his second stint and was even repassed by the Rosberg Audi of Nico Muller, dropping back to seventh place.

Marco Wittmann, Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M4 GT3

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

Van der Linde meanwhile moved up into podium positions when Grasser Lamborghini driver Clemens Schmid tumbled down the order with a puncture, moving him further clear of Auer in the championship standings.

Although the South African did come under pressure from Zug’s Attempto Audi in the final stages of the race, he was able to hang on to third and secure his maiden title in the DTM.

It ended a six-year winless streak for BMW in Germany’s premier racing category, with the Munich-based brand having last won a championship in 2016 with Wittmann.

Coincidentally, it was Wittmann who claimed victory in the Hockenheim finale after emerging on top in a close duel with Rast that saw them bang wheels multiple times after their pitstops.

Having stopped for fresh tyres a lap clear of the Walkenhorst driver, Rast was able to rapidly close in on him and sent his car up the inside into Turn 6, with the two drivers running side-by-side into the following right-hander.

Rast and Wittmann then made contact going into Turn 8 with the Audi driver sent wide over the run-off area, but Rast kept the foot on the throttle and finally completed the move into Turn 12.

However, uncharacteristically for the three-time champion, he made a slight error going into the Turn 5 kink on the following lap, running wide over the grass and into a sponsorship hoarding before rejoining the track.

Rene Rast, Team ABT Sportsline Audi R8 LMS GT3

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

This gave Wittmann the incentive to retake the lead and he duly made the move around the outside into the hairpin en route to victory.

Rast, hence, had to settle for second in his final race outing as an Audi driver, while van der Linde finished 10s behind the leading duo to secure the title.

Attempto Audi’s Zug clinched his first top 10 result of the season in fourth, while Kelvin van der Linde charged from near the back of the pack to finish fifth in the Abt Audi.

Muller was classified sixth, while Auer could make no progress in the second stint carrying 25kg success ballast on his Winward Mercedes as he crossed the line a disappointing seventh.

The top 10 was completed by Leon Kohler (Walkenhorst BMW), Luca Stolz (HRT Mercedes) and Ricardo Feller (Abt Audi), the last-named grabbing the final championship point despite having to make an extra puncture to replace a damaged tyre.

DTM Hockenheim - Race 2 results:

Cla	Driver		Car	Gap	Interval
1	Marco Wittmann		BMW M4 GT3
2	René Rast		Audi R8 LMS Evo II	4.425	4.425
3	Sheldon Van Der Linde		BMW M4 GT3	14.793	10.368
4	Marius Zug		Audi R8 LMS Evo II	15.084	0.291
5	Kelvin van der Linde		Audi R8 LMS Evo II	23.821	8.737
6	Nico Müller		Audi R8 LMS Evo II	41.011	17.190
7	Lucas Auer		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	41.433	0.422
8	Leon Köhler		BMW M4 GT3	41.557	0.124
9	Luca Stolz		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	42.360	0.803
10	Ricardo Feller		Audi R8 LMS Evo II	42.716	0.356
11	Alessio Deledda		Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo	43.164	0.448
12	Dev Gore		Audi R8 LMS Evo II	1'05.349	22.185
	Maro Engel		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	11 Laps	11 Laps
	Clemens Schmid		Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo	12 Laps	1 Lap
	Maximilian Buhk		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	21 Laps	9 Laps
	Philipp Eng		BMW M4 GT3	30 Laps	9 Laps
	Mirko Bortolotti		Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo	30 Laps	2.184
	Christian Engelhart		Porsche 911 GT3 R	33 Laps	3 Laps
	Maximilian Götz		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo
View full results