WINWARD Racing keeps DTM title hopes alive
Maro Engel finishes a strong second in the Saturday race at the Red Bull Ring and stays within striking distance in the title fight. Seventh for Lucas Auer.
With their seventh podium of the season, Maro Engel and the Mercedes-AMG Team WINWARD kept their chances of the 2024 DTM title alive in the Saturday race at the Red Bull Ring. After a strong race, the 39-year-old Monaco resident steered his Mercedes-AMG GT3 in the “130 Years of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport” and RAVENOL design to second place for the fifth time this year, cutting his deficit to the DTM leader by three to 12 points. His Austrian team-mate Lucas Auer (30, Kufstein) completed the strong team result with a good seventh place in the sister car entered by Mercedes-AMG Team MANN-FILTER.
In qualifying the two Mercedes-AMG GT3 of the German-Texan squad had already shown themselves fully competitive on the 4.3-kilometre Grand Prix track in Styria. Grid positions 3 (Engel) and 6 (Auer) gave reason for confidence in the race. All the more so when Engel stormed into second straight after the start and took the lead during the first lap on the still damp track. Auer also came through the chaos of the first kilometres well and settled into fourth.
After that, however, the two WINWARD cars on rain tyres struggled more and more on the steadily drying track. Engel had to give up the lead on lap seven and came in for slicks as soon as the pit window opened in the 20th minute. Auer followed a lap later, with the WWR pit crew delivering the fastest mandatory pit stop of all teams all season in 6.0 seconds.
Engel then cut the gap to the leader to around a second, but it wasn’t enough for a real attack. “We can be happy with second from third on the grid, even though of course we would have liked to keep the lead to the finish,” commented the Munich native. “In hindsight we started with slightly too much tyre pressure and couldn’t keep Bortolotti behind. But it was still a good race, we are still right in the championship fight and we’re looking forward to tomorrow.”
After his stop, Auer got caught up in a fierce battle and dropped back three places after a small nudge from a rival. The Tyrolean made up two places by the finish but was not entirely satisfied in the end: “Seventh is of course not ideal when you start sixth. But I had some cool battles. The pace wasn’t good enough though, neither in the wet nor in the dry. We need to work on that tonight, and then we’ll attack again tomorrow.”
WWR team principal Christian Hohenadel was pleased with the team performance: “We were competitive here from the first practice session. Maro’s second place keeps us in the title race. A shame that Luggi dropped back after being hit. What I have to highlight once again is my pit crew. The Mamba’s stop was simply outstanding. It was a good day that makes me optimistic for tomorrow.”
The Sunday race at the Red Bull Ring starts again at 1.30 pm. ProSieben, JOYN and ran.de will broadcast live and in full as always.