Hockenheim DTM: Wittmann sets Friday practice pace

Wittmann's 1m29.881 lap came after R-Motorsport Aston Martin's Paul di Resta suffered a crash at the final corner, skating across the gravel and hitting the outside wall.

On-board footage showed his steering column dislodging slightly as Di Resta turned in.

When the track returned to green flag conditions, two-time DTM champion Wittmann improved on his best time twice to set a lap that was just over 0.6s clear of the Audi of 2019 champion Rene Rast.

Timo Glock, who topped the morning's wet running in first practice, finished third for BMW.

The first practice session proved dramatic for the SUPER GT field as TOM'S Lexus driver Nick Cassidy crashed at the Sachskurve, before the NISMO-run Nissan of Tsugio Matsuda suffered a similar incident.

That left 2009 Formula 1 world champion Jenson Button to rack up the laps for the SUPER GT field as it comes to grips with the DTM's Hankook control tyre and helps inform the Balance of Performance that could be used this weekend and at the Fuji joint-races.

Button progressively moved up the leaderboard before slipping to 16th overall and 2.6s off Glock's FP1 benchmark time of 1m47.841s.

The Kunimitsu Honda driver improved right at the end of the second session to again place as the lead SUPER GT driver in 15th, 2.1s off Wittmann's top time.

Ryo Hirakawa took over Cassidy's Lexus in the second session - which ran with an unpainted bonnet after Cassidy's morning crash showed spare parts are at a premium - and was 17th.

Multiple SUPER GT champion Ronnie Quintarelli placed his Nissan 21st and last.

Jamie Green placed fourth ahead of Audi stablemates Nico Muller and Mike Rockenfeller.

The top 10 in the second session was rounded out by Philipp Eng (BMW), WRT Audi's Pietro Fittipaldi, Bruno Spengler (BMW) and Loic Duval (Audi).

R-Motorsport, which will not take part in the Fuji joint-races, had Daniel Juncadella place as its highest driver in 12th.

The session finished with a practice safety car and a DTM-style restart to help the SUPER GT adaptation period.

FP2 results:

Cla	#	Driver	Car	Time	Gap
1	11	Marco Wittmann	BMW M4 Turbo DTM	1'29.881
2	33	René Rast	Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM	1'30.489	0.608
3	16	Timo Glock	BMW M4 Turbo DTM	1'30.583	0.702
4	53	Jamie Green	Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM	1'30.656	0.775
5	51	Nico Müller	Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM	1'30.916	1.035
6	99	Mike Rockenfeller	Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM	1'30.962	1.081
7	25	Philipp Eng	BMW M4 Turbo DTM	1'31.026	1.145
8	21	Pietro Fittipaldi	Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM	1'31.113	1.232
9	7	Bruno Spengler	BMW M4 Turbo DTM	1'31.151	1.270
10	28	Loic Duval	Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM	1'31.253	1.372
11	4	Robin Frijns	Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM	1'31.689	1.808
12	23	Daniel Juncadella	Aston Martin Vantage DTM	1'31.855	1.974
13	62	Ferdinand Habsburg	Aston Martin Vantage DTM	1'31.950	2.069
14	47	Joel Eriksson	BMW M4 Turbo DTM	1'31.960	2.079
15	1	Jenson Button	Honda NSX-GT	1'31.986	2.105
16	27	Jonathan Aberdein	Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM	1'32.291	2.410
17	37	Nick Cassidy	Lexus LC500	1'32.339	2.458
18	31	Sheldon Van Der Linde	BMW M4 Turbo DTM	1'32.531	2.650
19	3	Paul di Resta	Aston Martin Vantage DTM	1'32.541	2.660
20	76	Jake Dennis	Aston Martin Vantage DTM	1'33.301	3.420
21	35	Tsugio Matsuda	Nissan/ R35	1'33.527	3.646
View full results