Another one-two-three victory for Audi in the DTM

(L to R) Tomczyk, Ekstrom and Mortara celebrate Audi 1-2-3

Audi, Audi, Audi – only 14 days after the one-two-three triumph in the rain battle at Brands Hatch the brand with the four rings again took the whole podium at a DTM race in similarly difficult conditions. At Oschersleben, Mattias Ekstrom (Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline) triumphed in front of leader of the standings Martin Tomczyk (Audi Sport Team Phoenix) and rookie Edoardo Mortara (Audi Sport Team Rosberg).

For Audi this marked the 60th victory in total in the most popular international touring car series, the sixth in the current season and an important step toward another DTM title. With a sensational recovery Martin Tomczyk managed to advance to second place after having started from position 14, extending his overall lead by nine points before the last two races. Consequently, the Bavarian driver living in Switzerland will already have the first match ball and chance of securing an early title win for Audi at Valencia (Spain) on October 2.

On the wet track at the Motorsport Arena Tomczyk pushed forward to sixth place right on the starting lap and was subsequently one of the quickest drivers in the field. Nevertheless, he was kept on edge all the way up to the finish. After having been touched by Jamie Green right at the beginning of the race the hood of Tomczyk’s car came off on lap 18. "That caused me to completely lose the front aerodynamics," said the leader of the standings. "But we had so much mechanical grip today that it didn’t even make such a big difference. Oschersleben was extremely slippery in the rain today. When I saw that one car after the other in front of me was spinning off the track I took it a little easier. That paid off."

No less impressive than Martin Tomczyk’s recovery was the victorious drive of Mattias Ekström, who by clinching his second success of the season narrowed his gap to the runner-up in the standings, Bruno Spengler, to ten points. The Swede pushed forward from fourth to second place at the start and only needed eight laps to overtake the Canadian who had been leading up to that point. The two-time DTM Champion then drove one fastest lap after the other and had an advantage of no less than 42 seconds on crossing the finish line. "The car was simply fantastic," said a jubilant Ekstrom. "I can only say ‘thank you’ to my engineer and to the team."

Results

Pos Driver Team Behind
1. Mattias Ekstrom Abt Audi +0.000s
2. Martin Tomczyk Phoenix Audi +42.167s
3. Edoardo Mortara Rosberg Audi +43.376s
4. Gary Paffett HWA Mercedes +53.184s
5. Christian Vietoris Persson Mercedes +53.873s
6. Mike Rockenfeller Abt Audi +54.795s
7. Maro Engel Mucke Mercedes +56.504s
8. Miguel Molina Abt Audi +1m04.593s
9. Oliver Jarvis Abt Audi +1m22.704s
10. David Coulthard Mucke Mercedes +1m25.008s
11. Jamie Green HWA Mercedes +1m27.514s
12. Rahel Frey Phoenix Audi +1 lap

Retirements:

Bruno Spengler HWA Mercedes 42 laps
Timo Scheider Abt Audi 25 laps
Filipe Albuquerque Rosberg Audi 11 laps
Ralf Schumacher HWA Mercedes 9 laps
Renger van der Zande Persson Mercedes 6 laps
Susie Stoddart Persson Mercedes 2 laps