WINWARD Racing defies the weather
WWR drivers Maro Engel and Lucas Auer bring their Mercedes-AMG GT3 home 2nd and 4th in the DTM Saturday race at the Lausitzring.
With a perfect strategy, strong pit work and convincing driving, Mercedes-AMG Team WINWARD finished the Saturday race at the Lausitzring in second and fourth in difficult conditions, taking its second podium in the third race of the season. Starting only from the seventh row, Maro Engel (38, Monaco) drove up to second in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 in the colours of “130 Years of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport” and RAVENOL. Team-mate Lucas Auer (29, Austria) gained four positions in the sister car entered by Mercedes-AMG Team MANN-FILTER and finished fourth.
The weather played a key role in the race, which only started at 5 pm because of the ice hockey World Championship semi-final between the Czech Republic and Sweden. Light rain began to fall around the start and finish on lap two, and three laps later a downpour flooded the entire 3.4-kilometre circuit near Dresden.
The WWR strategy team reacted in a flash and called in Maro Engel, who was only 19th after a scramble at the start, to switch to wet tyres. A lap later Lucas Auer also got treaded tyres. The successful strategy and two super-fast stops lifted the WWR cars to second (Engel) and seventh (Auer). However, the rain then became so heavy that race control sent the safety car onto the flooded track on lap 8 and stopped the race with a red flag one lap later.
After a first restart attempt failed because the rain got heavier again, the field was sent on its way again shortly after 6 pm following a break of more than half an hour. And in the remaining 33 minutes, the WINWARD team again made good decisions.
This time it was Luggi Auer in the MANN-FILTER Mamba who was called in first for the mandatory pit stop and then attacked hard on new wet tyres. Maro Engel was left out on the steadily drying track until just before the pit window closed, to keep the option of switching to slicks open. In the end, though, the number 130 car got wet tyres again. And even though dry tyres were clearly faster in the last few minutes, this proved to be the right decision. Engel safely brought home his second second place in a row.
“To come that far forward from the back is fantastic,” said the delighted Munich-born driver. “My thanks go to my race engineer Mauricio Moreira, who called me in at the right moment, and to my crew, who did a super stop. That and our good performance in the wet were the key to the podium. Now the focus is on tomorrow, when we will try to put in a good qualifying. Then a lot is possible in the Sunday race too.”
Auer, who finished just 1.2 seconds off the podium, was also satisfied. “That’s important points again,” said the driver from Kufstein. “Of course in hindsight I would have liked to come in a lap earlier for wet tyres, but that’s always a gamble. In the wet it then went very well, so I could gain a lot of ground, especially after the mandatory stop. We just have to put everything together, then we have the potential to fight right at the front.”
WWR team principal Christian Hohenadel praised not only his drivers but also the strategy team and the pit crew of the German-Texan squad: “After a qualifying that didn’t go perfectly, we did everything right in the race. The four pit stops were perfect in timing and execution, and both drivers delivered absolutely flawless performances in these difficult conditions. Big compliments to everyone, and may it continue like this tomorrow!”
The Sunday race at the Lausitzring starts at the usual time of 1.30 pm. As always, ProSieben and ran.de broadcast live and in full.