Hockenheim DTM: Molina dominates, Wittmann extends points lead

Wittmann entered the race with a 14-point lead over Mortara, needing to gain 12 points on his Italian rival to clinch the title with one race to spare.

At one point in the race, he was in position to do just that, but a heroic drive from Mortara kept the title battle alive heading into Sunday.

As Molina passed poleman Antonio Felix da Costa off the line, Wittmann just held on to fourth, with BMW stablemate Maxime Martin backing out of a move on the championship and losing a number of places.

Among those to pass Martin was Mortara, who moved up to seventh as a result, but the Italian was then demoted to eighth at Sachs with a forceful move from Timo Glock, the duo making contact on corner exit.

Wittmann, meanwhile, was waved through by Tom Blomqvist at the hairpin, settling into third place.

Da Costa, racing in his final weekend in DTM, tried to put pressure on race leader Molina during the opening stint, but eventually slowed up to allow Wittmann through into second.

At that point, even with Molina checking out up ahead, Wittmann was heading towards an early title confirmation - but a crucial four-lap stint from Mortara in the middle of the race kept his title hopes alive.

As Glock looked down the inside of fellow BMW driver Augusto Farfus into the hairpin and then ducked back in behind his teammate, Mortara divebombed Glock for P7 and emerged ahead.

He then eased past Farfus on the next lap and was through on Audi stablemate Mike Rockenfeller on lap 17 as Rockenfeller was battling Blomqvist.

The Anglo-Swede fell by the wayside on approach to the hairpin on lap 18, with Mortara taking over in fourth.

He then made massive inroads into da Costa's advantage, arriving at the back of the Portuguese driver in the closing stages, with Wittmann just ahead.

With a minute left on the clock, Mortara pulled off an audacious hairpin overtake on da Costa to step onto the podium.

But Wittmann remained ahead until the chequered flag, taking a 17-point lead into the Sunday race, with 25 points available.

Crossing the finish line, Mortara went on the radio to say: "We're the only ones who deserve this championship."

Behind him, da Costa took fourth in his penultimate DTM race, ahead of Rockenfeller and Mattias Ekstrom stand-in Rene Rast, the prototype ace banking his first points in the series in his second start.

Glock was seventh, ahead of Jamie Green, who had entered the round with an outside chance at the title and was duly eliminated from contention.

Blomqvist wound up ninth, while Paul di Resta scored Mercedes' only point of the day.

Race results

Pos.	#	Driver	Car	Laps	Time	Gap
1	17	Miguel Molina	Audi RS5 DTM	27	43'02.346
2	11	Marco Wittmann	BMW M4 DTM	27	43'04.007	1.661
3	48	Edoardo Mortara	Audi RS5 DTM	27	43'05.151	2.805
4	13	Antonio Felix da Costa	BMW M4 DTM	27	43'07.216	4.870
5	99	Mike Rockenfeller	Audi RS5 DTM	27	43'08.410	6.064
6	72	René Rast	Audi RS5 DTM	27	43'10.338	7.992
7	16	Timo Glock	BMW M4 DTM	27	43'14.204	11.858
8	53	Jamie Green	Audi RS5 DTM	27	43'18.316	15.970
9	31	Tom Blomqvist	BMW M4 DTM	27	43'19.534	17.188
10	3	Paul di Resta	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	27	43'21.394	19.048
11	18	Augusto Farfus	BMW M4 DTM	27	43'23.554	21.208
12	27	Adrien Tambay	Audi RS5 DTM	27	43'24.274	21.928
13	36	Maxime Martin	BMW M4 DTM	27	43'24.817	22.471
14	7	Bruno Spengler	BMW M4 DTM	27	43'25.579	23.233
15	51	Nico Müller	Audi RS5 DTM	27	43'26.154	23.808
16	10	Timo Scheider	Audi RS5 DTM	27	43'26.634	24.288
17	84	Maximilian Götz	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	27	43'27.058	24.712
18	22	Lucas Auer	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	27	43'27.313	24.967
19	2	Gary Paffett	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	27	43'32.930	30.584
20	100	Martin Tomczyk	BMW M4 DTM	27	43'38.250	35.904
21	12	Daniel Juncadella	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	27	43'39.718	37.372
22	8	Christian Vietoris	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	27	43'45.939	43.593
23	6	Robert Wickens	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	25	40'32.775	2 laps
24	88	Felix Rosenqvist	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	9	15'08.604	18 laps