Lausitzring DTM: Auer extends points lead with comfortable win

The Austrian driver had a good launch off the line and led the entire race, gradually extending his lead to seven seconds by the time all the pitstops panned out, and only giving up two seconds afterwards.

Robert Wickens also finished in the same position he started, despite temporarily dropping behind Maxime Martin.

Martin slipstreamed past Wickens in the early stages and kept second until his pitstop.

The BMW driver stopped a lap later than Wickens and, while he comfortably rejoined in second, Wickens soon managed to demote the Belgian.

Martin eventually had to settle for fourth, as Rene Rast, who pitted seven laps later and enjoyed better tyres in the late stages, claimed third, his maiden podium finish in the series.

Martin also came under pressure from Mike Rockenfeller during the final laps, even though the German was on an early-stop strategy.

DTM veteran Gary Paffett was sixth, ahead of Mercedes stablemate Edoardo Mortara.

Mortara was the last driver to pit, on Lap 28 of 43, and while he rejoined in fifth, he quickly lost three praces on cold tyres, and could only re-pass Mattias Ekstrom afterwards.

Maro Engel claimed his best finish since his return to DTM in ninth, as Jamie Green made it to the top 10 from last on the grid.

Green was 12th in the qualifying, but was disqualified for using his teammate Rene Rast's tyres.

The top non-scoring positions were held by four BMWs in the order of Timo Glock, Augusto Farfus, Marco Wittmann and Bruno Spengler, as the marque was only represented by Martin in the top 10.

Glock was fifth when he pitted, but ran wide right after his pitstop, losing several positions.

Loic Duval was 15th, hindered by a five-second time penalty for a jump start, as the last two drivers were the colliding Paul di Resta and Tom Blomqvist. The former was penalised for sending the latter into a spin.

Nico Muller was the only retirement of the race, as his race was cut short by brake issues.

Race 1 results

Cla	Driver	Car	Time/Gap
1	Lucas Auer	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	56'37.503
2	Robert Wickens	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	3.613
3	René Rast	Audi RS5 DTM	12.581
4	Maxime Martin	BMW M4 DTM	17.660
5	Mike Rockenfeller	Audi RS5 DTM	17.810
6	Gary Paffett	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	20.253
7	Edoardo Mortara	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	21.366
8	Mattias Ekström	Audi RS5 DTM	22.319
9	Maro Engel	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	26.361
10	Jamie Green	Audi RS5 DTM	29.960
11	Timo Glock	BMW M4 DTM	34.423
12	Augusto Farfus	BMW M4 DTM	35.163
13	Marco Wittmann	BMW M4 DTM	36.280
14	Bruno Spengler	BMW M4 DTM	38.467
15	Loic Duval	Audi RS5 DTM	39.577
16	Paul di Resta	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	48.526
17	Tom Blomqvist	BMW M4 DTM	1'01.476
	Nico Müller	Audi RS5 DTM	9 laps