OUICK LAPS THE FASTEST NEWS ROUND-UP
The DTM title fight intensified at the Lausitzring last weekend, as Audi protagonists Rene Rast and Nico Muller took one win each. The increasingly-dominant Rast claimed pole for the opening race, with title rival and stablemate Nico Muller down in third. But after just seven laps, a suspected electrical problem caused Rast to slow, allowing Muller through to cruise to a comfortable victory that took Rast’s lead down to just 14 points. Then came the twist. Battling a clutch problem all weekend, Muller and his Abt crew opted against using a joker to replace it for Sunday’s race. Starting third, ahead of Rast, Muller bogged down and ended up forcing a recovery drive from 10th to second as Rast’s victory helped extend the buffer by six points to 20. Muller and Rast’s dominance allowed Audi to claim the manufacturers’ crown with four races remaining… Rebellion Racing has made a late entry of a second privateer LMP1 car for the opening round of the 2019-20 World Endurance Championship at Silverstone this weekend. The Swiss entrant will field an additional Rebellion-gibson R-13 for Loic Duval, Pipo Derani and Nathanael Berthon after initially downscaling its WEC entry to one car from the two it entered for the full series in May... WRT gave Audi its first Intercontinental GT Challenge victory of 2019 following a dominant showing in the second running of the Suzuka 10 Hours. The #25 crew comprising Kelvin van der Linde, Dries Vanthoor and Frederic Vervisch took the chequered flag 40 seconds clear of the #999 Gruppem Mercedes that won the event last year. Porsche made it three different manufacturers on the podium, Absolute Racing’s 911 GT3 R finishing 43s down on the leader in third. The early stages of the race were dominated by BMW, as the polesitting #42 Schnitzer M6 GT3 led the similar
#34 car run by the Walkenhorst team in a one-two. However, BMW’S challenge unravelled, with the #34 Walkenhorst car the first to fall out of contention.