Jamie Green scores a commanding win at Lausitz

Great satisfaction for Jamie Green: following bad luck on Saturday, the Brit scored a commanding win in the DTM race at the Lausitzring on Sunday in front of a 67,500 strong crowd. After 43 laps, he took the checkered flag as the race winner, 6.2 seconds ahead of his fellow Audi driver Mattias Ekstrom, who used an extreme strategy to move up from eighth place on the starting grid to second at the finish. Mercedes-AMG driver Robert Wickens, who had started the race from pole position, still managed to bring third place home.

After a difficult race on Saturday, the Sunday race was the total opposite for Jamie Green. With third place on the grid, the initial situation was much better and so was the result from the race. “We are having a really hard time in qualifying," Green admitted. “In the race, on the other hand, things are going much better. That was great fun for me." With his second victory of the season, Green also set things straight again in the drivers’ standings: second place after four races, 16 points down on leader Auer (69 points), who was having a hard time today. In qualifying, the Austrian was unable to do any better than 15th place. In the race, the 22-year-old worked his way up to finish tenth.

Mattias Ekstrom in particular provided plenty of excitement. The Swede opted for a very courageous strategy and already came in for his pit stop after one lap. Having started from eighth place on the grid, that initially got him out of traffic and he drove his own race. With most of the drivers having completed their stops around the halfway point of the race, Ekstrom showed his skills in handling the tires and kept them alive until the end. “I lost time yesterday when I came in after five laps," Ekstrom explained. “Therefore, I suggested to dig even deeper today. My team wasn’t sure whether or not that would work out, but I was."

Mike Rockenfeller mirrored Ekstrom’s move and also stopped after only one lap. With these tactics, he made up six places and finished fifth behind DTM veteran Gary Paffett (Mercedes-AMG). Nico Muller and René Rast rounded out the strong performance by Audi in sixth and seventh place.

In the Sunday race, the BMW drivers failed to live up to the expectations. Only Maxime Martin and Marco Wittmann managed to score points in eighth and ninth place respectively.

After the spectacular events at Hockenheim and the Lausitzring, the first DTM round outside of Germany is scheduled from 16-18 June. Near the Hungarian capital of Budapest, the Hungaroring will be hosting the fifth and sixth race of the season.

Results

POS DRIVER TEAM CAR GAP
1 Jamie Green Rosberg Audi 56m20.480s
2 Mattias Ekstrom Abt Audi 6.295s
3 Robert Wickens HWA Mercedes 7.034s
4 Gary Paffett HWA Mercedes 7.387s
5 Mike Rockenfeller Phoenix Audi 9.750s
6 Nico Muller Abt Audi 13.039s
7 Rene Rast Rosberg Audi 16.370s
8 Maxime Martin RBM BMW 18.115s
9 Marco Wittmann RMG BMW 19.540s
10 Lucas Auer HWA Mercedes 26.283s
11 Edoardo Mortara HWA Mercedes 34.419s
12 Maro Engel HWA Mercedes 34.973s
13 Paul Di Resta HWA Mercedes 36.322s
14 Augusto Farfus RMG BMW 37.554s
15 Timo Glock RMR BMW 38.815s
16 Bruno Spengler RBM BMW 39.363s
17 Tom Blomqvist RMR BMW 39.994s
18 Loic Duval Phoenix Audi 44.331s