WINWARD Racing’s gamble pays off
A daring strategy in the Sunday race at the Red Bull Ring gave Lucas Auer a very good starting position for the DTM showdown.
With a risky tyre strategy, Lucas Auer and Mercedes-AMG Team WINWARD Racing made an impressive return to the fight for the 2022 DTM title in the Sunday race of the seventh race weekend at the Red Bull Ring. On a drying track, the 28-year-old Tyrolean was the first in the entire field to switch from wet tyres to slicks, which allowed him to charge up to sixth place. Together with the bonus point for the fastest race lap, Auer is now second in the standings ahead of the season finale at Hockenheim in two weeks, just eleven points behind leader Sheldon van der Linde (BMW).
Morning qualifying in pouring rain, with 12th on the grid, had not been to the Kufstein driver’s liking. While it was still raining lightly at the start of the race, the 4.3-kilometre track gradually dried, making tyre management a decisive factor. While some rivals chose to fit wet tyres again at the mandatory pit stop, the strategists of Mercedes-AMG Team WINWARD Racing decided to leave Auer and his team-mate Maximilian Götz out on wets long enough for a switch to dry tyres to become possible.
The KNAUS Mercedes-AMG GT3 was the first car in the entire field to get slicks, at the end of lap 22. “That decision came from the team. Honestly, I don’t know if I would have dared,” Auer said. “On the first lap after the pit stop I nearly went off at least three times. But once the tyres were up to temperature, I knew we had done the right thing.” “Luggi” then gained place after place, set the fastest lap of the whole race on lap 33 and finished sixth: “A shame the race wasn’t five laps longer…”
For the big title showdown at Hockenheim on 8/9 October, the championship runner-up has a very clear motto: “The top five in the standings are separated by just 18 points. I’m convinced that only someone who wins at least one race at Hockenheim will become champion. For us that means: full attack!”
Auer’s team-mate Maximilian Götz was not entirely satisfied in the end. The 34-year-old from Uffenheim had set the second-fastest lap on the extremely wet asphalt in qualifying in the BWT car, but a penalty for track limits violations in the previous day’s race dropped him three places. After the start the defending champion went on the attack immediately but then had to back off. “We got the tyre pressures wrong,” Götz admitted. “After just three laps the rear tyres went off and traction kept getting worse. Hoping for a safety car, we decided to stay out as long as possible anyway and then switch to slicks at the earliest possible moment.”
One lap after Auer, Götz also had slicks fitted and joined his team-mate in a charge through the field that ultimately earned him seventh place. “When you see that the winners in the end were two cars that ran the whole race on wets, you have to be honest and admit that would have been the right strategy – provided you got the tyre management perfect. We were too slow for about ten laps, but then made the best of it. So we can be happy with the result in the end.”
That was clearly not the case for David Schumacher. The 20-year-old Salzburg resident had already shone with eighth on the grid in the RAVENOL car in wet qualifying and was in the points throughout the race, until an unlucky strategy (another switch to wets on lap 19) combined with a completely botched second pit stop (switch to slicks on lap 28) dropped him hopelessly back. “We have to take that on ourselves as a team,” said WWR team principal Christian Hohenadel, defending the youngster. “David delivered a flawless performance today and more than deserved his first points. It wasn’t his fault that it didn’t work out.”
Overall, Hohenadel credited his team with a very good performance: “On a track that is certainly not one of our very best, places 4 and 6 have put Luggi in a very good position in the title fight. I’m confident we will be competitive at Hockenheim too. But it is so close at the front that absolutely anything can happen in two weeks. It will be a textbook showdown.”