World of Sport: DTM; NASCAR Cup; Motogp; WTCR
What looked like another weekend of Mercedes DTM domination culminated in reigning champion Rene Rast taking Audi’s first success of the season at Zandvoort last Sunday, thanks to an audacious strategy and great long-run speed. Only that inspired win prevented Gary Paffett from taking a clean sweep of pole positions and victories, but it didn’t stop the British Mercedes veteran from significantly extending his championship lead.
Rast’s win made up for desperate disappointment on Saturday. He had qualified his Team Rosberg-run RS5 down in ninth, while Paffett headed a Mercedes clean sweep of the top four. While most of the field made their mandatory pitstops relatively early, Rast stayed out, and such was his strong pace on old tyres as the midway point of the race approached that it seemed he would easily gain a top-five position after he rejoined.
Then Audi stablemate Nico Muller sustained a left-front puncture, sending him plunging into the tyre wall at the Gerlachbocht right-hander behind the paddock, and bringing out the safety car. That absolutely stuffed Rast’s strategy because, while you can pit behind the safety car, it doesn’t count as your mandatory stop. So at the restart he led the pack, but knew that he was doomed. Sure enough, Rast pitted on the penultimate lap, dropped to last, and Paffett took the honours from Mercedes team-mates Paul di Resta,
Lucas Auer and Pascal Wehrlein.
Wehrlein had run second early on to Paffett, but lost a few seconds in the pits and got a little bit duffed up by di Resta and Auer at the restart. Interestingly, Muller had been running between Wehrlein and Auer at the point where he got his puncture, his race pace as well as Rast’s indicating that Audi was a force on the circuit around the dunes. The problems for this duo allowed local hero Robin Frijns to gratifyingly lead the Audi charge in fifth, ahead of top BMW man Timo Glock.
Sunday was where things turned around. Although Paffett claimed another pole – a gargantuan margin of 0.446 seconds in his favour – this was the first time in 2018 that all three manufacturers have been in the top three places on the grid. BMW’S Philipp Eng lined up second, with Rast taking third.
While Paffett shot away at the start, opening up a five-second margin on Eng within five laps, Rast dived for the pits at the end of lap one – no chance of getting caught out by a safety car this time! It also put him in clear air. While Eng’s dogged defence of second place from Mercedes men Wehrlein and di Resta exaggerated Paffett’s advantage, it soon became apparent that
Rast was taking large chunks of time out of those at the front of the field.
If Paffett didn’t pit soon, Rast would emerge in the lead. Indeed, the stop came too late. Paffett headed for new tyres on lap 10, and by the end of his opening lap after his stop he was 2.3s adrift of Rast. Then came a safety car that was again ill-timed for Rast, ironically caused by his Rosberg team-mate Jamie Green punting Bruno Spengler’s BMW into the gravel at Tarzan. Rast would face the restart on older tyres than his pursuers Paffett and di Resta…
“I was just screaming, ‘It cannot be real’, and I went through Turn 1 and there was no car in the gravel [Spengler’s BMW had already been removed],” said Rast. “I thought, ‘What’s going on?’” But it all came good for Rast, who had endured a disastrous season to date as reigning champion. “After so much
bad luck – two times I have rolled! – I’m happy to be back on the top of the podium.”
Paffett kept Rast under constant pressure, and the victor reckoned this was one of the toughest races of his career. But it meant he capitalised on a circuit where he thinks Audi can at least compete. It appears that the RS5 is competitive on high-downforce circuits – the Hungaroring was its previous best weekend to date this season – and the upcoming events at Brands Hatch and Misano should play to its strengths.
“I can’t complain with not winning both races,” acknowledged a respectful Paffett. “I saw Rene pitted and we didn’t react to that – we were racing to finish on the podium. He drove a great race, and his pace was incredible on the old tyres.”
Eng’s defensive job in the early laps of the race cost him a bit of time, but the safety car brought him back onto the leading trio and he took fourth, just ahead of fellow BMW man Augusto Farfus. Wehrlein probably ran too long into the race before making his pitstop, so lost time there, then made contact with Muller as he rejoined after his stop, allowing Farfus to leapfrog both and consigning the ex-sauber F1 driver to sixth from Muller and
Edoardo Mortara.