A strong showing from WINWARD Racing
Sixth place for Lucas Auer in the first race of the DTM meeting at Zandvoort (NL). Team-mate David Schumacher retires early.
A strong performance over the race distance brought Mercedes-AMG Team WINWARD and Lucas Auer their next points of the current DTM season. In the Saturday race of the second round of the year at Zandvoort in the Netherlands, the 28-year-old Austrian drove his Mercedes-AMG GT3 in Knaus colours to sixth. Team-mate David Schumacher (21, Salzburg) was unlucky and had to park the Ravenol sister car early after a collision on the opening lap that was not his fault.
While morning qualifying had been disappointing for the German-Texan team with grid positions 12 (Auer) and 19 (Schumacher), the WWR cars made a lightning start once the race got under way and each gained three positions in the first corners. Schumacher: “The start was super, the car felt very good. Unfortunately there was then contact with an Audi in the scramble. I hoped that only a body part was rubbing on the tyre and kept going at first. But then the tyre burst completely. Because the car was also damaged, we had to stop.”
Meanwhile, stablemate Auer set a high pace, gained more positions and brought his 550 hp car into the pits in seventh shortly after the pit window opened, where the WWR crew delivered the fastest tyre change of the entire 27-car DTM field in 6.1 seconds, gaining their driver another place.
Auer confidently held that sixth place to the finish and was very satisfied afterwards: “After the disappointing qualifying we did everything right in the race. The start was super, as were the strategy and the pit stop. We now have to work hard to start further up the grid, then I’m optimistic for the coming races.”
WWR team principal Christian Hohenadel spoke of “a flawless performance by the whole team. Our race pace was very pleasing, Luggi’s pit stop top class. If you gain six positions in the race in this top-class field, you’ve done a lot right. David would certainly also have had the pace to move into the points. However, again today we didn’t manage to get the maximum out of our package in qualifying. The fact that five and seven tenths of a second off pole mean 12th and 19th on the grid shows once again how close the DTM is. Everything simply has to come together. So there’s still a lot to do, but we firmly intend to take the next step in tomorrow’s race.”
The Sunday race at Zandvoort again starts at 1.30 pm. ProSieben broadcasts the gripping action on the spectacular 4.3-kilometre dune circuit live from 1 pm.