A clear step forward for WINWARD Racing
In the Sunday race at Oschersleben, Lucas Auer and David Schumacher score their first DTM points of 2023 in their Mercedes-AMG GT3.
Mercedes-AMG Team WINWARD showed clear improvement over the previous day in the Sunday race of the DTM opener at the Motorsport Arena Oschersleben and scored the first points of the young season with both Mercedes-AMG GT3. Lucas Auer (28, Kufstein) crossed the line tenth in the Knaus car. Team-mate David Schumacher (21, Salzburg) finished three places behind last year’s runner-up in the Ravenol sister car after another turbulent race, scoring his first ever DTM points.
In qualifying, the WWR duo secured a slightly better starting position than the day before with 10th (Auer) and 16th (Schumacher) on the grid, with Schumacher in particular struggling with the heavy traffic on the short 3.6-kilometre, very twisty track in the Magdeburg Börde. The small gaps of around three and five tenths of a second for Auer and Schumacher to pole once again showed the enormous competitiveness of the field of 27 GT3 cars from six brands.
Accordingly, the one-hour race that followed was hard-fought. Schumacher brought his Mercedes-AMG GT3 home in 13th with clear battle scars. “A bit of contact is part of it,” said the son of six-time Formula 1 Grand Prix winner Ralf Schumacher. “The first DTM points are nice, but overall our pace wasn’t strong enough to finish right at the front.”
Luggi Auer reported something similar: “It went better than yesterday. Even so, we didn’t manage to use our full potential today either. As on Saturday, the balance wasn’t ideal and the car was difficult to drive. There’s a lot of work ahead of us. But I’m sure we’ll be stronger at Zandvoort.”
“It wasn’t an easy weekend for any of the Mercedes-AMG teams,” added WWR team principal Christian Hohenadel. “A Balance of Performance adjustment had a positive effect today, but we still weren’t fast enough to aim for podiums. However, we have a pretty good idea of which direction we need to work in now, so I’m confident that we will be a factor again at the next races. Especially as I have to pay my team a big compliment: both pit stops today were top class!”
The second race weekend of the 2023 DTM season takes place on 24/25 June on the legendary dune circuit at the Dutch seaside resort of Zandvoort.
From Oschersleben, however, the WINWARD Racing crew first heads straight to the south of France, where the second round of the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup powered by AWS takes place at Circuit Paul Ricard next Saturday. There the team from Altendiez again fields two Mercedes-AMG GT3 in the Gold Cup for the trios David Schumacher/Marius Zug/Miklas Born and Russell Ward/Philip Ellis/Indy Dontje.