An eventful start in Styria
In difficult conditions, Lucas Auer scored a point for WINWARD Racing in the DTM Saturday race at the Red Bull Ring.
After a disastrous qualifying session, Mercedes-AMG Team WINWARD shone with a strong comeback in the Saturday race of the seventh DTM weekend of the season at the Red Bull Ring in Austria. Starting from the very back, Lucas Auer (29, Kufstein) fought his way to a championship point in the Knaus Mercedes-AMG GT3. Team-mate David Schumacher (21, Salzburg), who started from the pit lane after a crash in qualifying, drove up to 18th in the Ravenol sister car.
The team from Altendiez already knew after morning qualifying that it would be a tough first race day on the 4.3-kilometre track in Styria. On a partly damp but drying track, the WWR management decided to send both cars out on slick tyres, expecting this choice to pay off in the last few minutes.
That hope proved wrong. While Auer found himself 27th on the grid, Schumacher went off on his warm-up lap and hit the barrier hard. “While warming up the brakes, the rear wheels spun very briefly, the car stepped out, and I was just a passenger,” said the Austria-based driver, who was unhurt. Contrary to the initially gloomy forecasts, the WWR team managed to repair the badly damaged car in less than three hours so that Schumacher could start from the pit lane.
The one-hour race was also shaped by difficult conditions. While Schumacher’s Mercedes-AMG GT3, like around three quarters of the 28-car DTM field, started on wet tyres and came past start and finish in 20th after the first lap, Auer and his crew gambled on slicks on the drying track.
This strategy only partly worked. The Tyrolean was faster than his rivals on wet tyres from around lap eight. However, the lap times of the treaded Pirelli tyres did not drop off as much as expected, so the local hero could not make up the calculated deficit before the pit window opened after 20 minutes.
“After we got the tyre choice wrong in qualifying, starting the race on slicks was also the worse option,” Auer analysed afterwards. “We were able to move up 12 positions, but we still sold ourselves short today. We have a lot of work ahead of us. Now we’ll push so that we move further forward tomorrow.”
Schumacher was not unhappy with 18th, even though the race did not go as planned for him either: “First of all, I have to say a big thank you to my guys. After the heavy crash in qualifying, I thought the race day was over. After the start I made real progress on the wet tyres, gained several positions and set good lap times. The pit stop worked perfectly and we were definitely moving forward. Unfortunately the safety car got in our way shortly afterwards. Because some rivals lost less time at their stop as a result, we lost four places. A pity, because points were definitely possible.”
WWR team principal Christian Hohenadel took responsibility for the team’s modest haul: “We made some wrong decisions today. Although the line between hero and zero is extremely thin in conditions like these. Sometimes a strategy works, sometimes it doesn’t. Once again the fighting spirit of the whole team was positive. Getting David’s car back on track in time for the race was an outstanding achievement. And his pit stop in the race was the fastest of the entire field. The potential of this team is enormous, and we have to do everything to turn it into the results it deserves.”
The next chance comes in tomorrow’s race at the Red Bull Ring. The start is again at 1.30 pm, and ProSieben and ran.de are live as always from 12.55 pm.