More important points for Auer and WINWARD
Mercedes-AMG ace Lucas Auer finishes a strong fourth in the DTM Saturday race at the Lausitzring. Team-mate David Schumacher retires.
Lucas Auer and Mercedes-AMG Team WINWARD carried their strong form from the last race weekend at the Nürburgring into the start of the second half of the 2023 DTM season. In the Saturday race at the Lausitzring, the 28-year-old from Kufstein, Austria, finished fourth in the Knaus Mercedes-AMG GT3, gaining more ground in the standings. Team-mate David Schumacher (21, Salzburg), on the other hand, had to park the Ravenol sister car with fading brakes before his mandatory pit stop.
“That was an incredibly hard race,” admitted Auer after the one-hour heat battle in air temperatures of almost 35 degrees. Starting from third, the Tyrolean always stayed in touch with the leaders but lost a position at the pit stop. “After the really good qualifying I’m also happy with the race result. The podium might have been possible, the win not. There are a few small things we need to improve, and then we’ll attack again tomorrow. The positive thing is that I can start without extra weight then.” In the standings Auer is fifth, just 34 points behind leader Preining.
David Schumacher, by contrast, was quite frustrated after the race: “After the strong race weekend at the Nürburgring we had high hopes here too. But we struggled to find the pace from the start. 21st on the grid was of course anything but a good starting point. At the start a rival pulled right in front of my car, I had to brake on the straight and lost some ground. After that the pace was quite decent, but the brake pedal got softer and softer, which of course didn’t get better in this heat. So we stopped to be on the safe side.”
WWR team principal Christian Hohenadel had mixed feelings about the result of his two cars: “We can be happy with Luggi’s race. Once again he got the maximum out of it, and we should be well placed for tomorrow too. David is finding it a bit hard here to deliver his performance the way he did at the Nürburgring. We now have to find out why and make sure we can do better tomorrow. What’s really remarkable is how close the 2023 DTM is. In the ninth race we saw the ninth different winner here – it’s time we added our name to the list!”
The DTM Sunday race on the 3.4-kilometre circuit near Dresden also starts at 1.30 pm. ProSieben broadcasts live from 12.55 pm, and online the exciting action from Lusatia can be followed on ran.de.