Race report
DTM Lausitzring II
Lausitzring DTM: Auer leads BMW 1-2 in wild Race 2
Lucas Auer delivered BMW’s first victory of the 2020 DTM season in a thrilling finish at the Lausitzring on Sunday after overtaking Timo Glock on the final lap of the race.
Rachit Thukral
Edited: Aug 23, 2020, 2:49 PM
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The second race of the Lausitzring weekend had appeared to be an all-Audi affair, with polesitter Robin Frijns leading early on from Rene Rast and Nico Muller.
Rast made a DRS-assisted move on Frijns on lap 4 to move to the front, only for Frijns to reinstate the status quo by repeating the move into Turn 1 three laps later
Meanwhile, a number of drivers led by Jamie Green - who had been running fourth behind the leading trio - completing their mandatory pitstops in the first 11 laps, and started recording lap times that were almost two seconds quicker than the leaders.
However, Frijns, Rast and Muller preferred not to react to the possibility of being undercut, waiting until the mid-point of the race to dive into the pits.
Rast was the first to head to the pitlane on lap 17, with Muller and Frijns following the reigning champion a lap and two laps later respectively.
Rast was able to take the advantage of his earlier pitstop to gain track position over Muller and Rast, but the trio were left firmly in the midfield, behind the six drivers who had stopped in the first 11 laps.
With the kind of tyre advantage they had, the trio should have found it easy to clear the traffic ahead of him, but none of them could clear Green, who led the race after the pitstops were shaken out but then dropped to third behind BMW duo Glock and Lucas Auer.
Glock and Auer both pitted on lap 10 and overtook Green on lap 24, before indulging in a battle of their own.
The two BMW drivers traded the lead twice, before Glock asserted his position over Auer, seemingly on his way to a first DTM win since 2018.
However, Auer emerged out of nowhere to outbrake the German driver into Turn 1 at the start of the final lap - and made the move stick to clinch his fifth victory in the category and the first with BMW.
After losing a place to Auer, Glock came under pressure from Green for P2, but the Team Rosberg driver had to turn his attention to Frijns, who had managed to clear both Muller and Green with the advantage of fresher tyres.
Frijns got a better exit out of the final corner and managed to just pip Green by just 0.2s to claim the final spot on the podium.
Behind, Muller and Rast crossed the line virtually side by side in a repeat of last weekend’s second race at the sprint layout, but it was Muller who emerged on top this time by a tiny margin of 0.009s.
Jonathan Aberdein finished seventh ahead of Audi’s Loic Duval and BMW stablemate Marco Wittmann, who slipped down the order in the second half of the race, having run inside the top five before the first pitstops.
Sheldon van der Linde completed a stunning recovery drive after stalling on the grid, claiming the final championship point in 10th - albeit five seconds behind the leading train of cars.
ART BMW’s Robert Kubica qualified a season-best 11th and ran inside the points early on, but finished the race in last place.
Lausitzting DTM - Race 2 results:
Cla # Driver Car Gap 1 22 Lucas Auer
BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020 2 16 Timo Glock
BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020 1.210 3 4 Robin Frijns
Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020 1.775 4 53 Jamie Green
Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020 1.977 5 51 Nico Müller
Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020 2.464 6 33 René Rast
Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020 2.475 7 27 Jonathan Aberdein
BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020 3.236 8 28 Loic Duval
Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020 4.096 9 11 Marco Wittmann
BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020 4.205 10 31 Sheldon Van Der Linde
BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020 9.090 11 99 Mike Rockenfeller
Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020 9.155 12 25 Philipp Eng
BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020 9.821 13 10 Harrison Newey
Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020 12.303 14 62 Ferdinand Habsburg
Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020 13.230 15 13 Fabio Scherer
Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020 15.396 16 8 Robert Kubica
BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020 28.090 View full results
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