Lausitzring DTM: Rast holds off Muller on last lap to win

Rast made a brilliant launch from third on the grid to challenge polesitter Frijns into Turn 1, but ran off the track and settled behind his Audi stablemate in second, as Muller dropped to fourth from the front row.

However, the reigning champion didn’t wait long before making another move, diving down the inside of Frijns at the same corner two laps later to take the lead of the race.

The two Audi drivers battled for position for one last time after the pitstops, after Frijns successfully managed to undercut Rast to move himself back into the lead.

Frijns initially appeared to have done after building a 2.5s lead up front, only Rast to rapidly close in on him and snatch the top spot on lap 25.

Muller, meanwhile, took an inspired decision to wait until lap 20 to make his mandatory pitstop, which initially dropped him to sixth but propelled him to winning contention slowly on.

Once his tyres were up to temperature, Muller started clearing cars in rapid succession, passing Wittmann on lap 34 to move into a podium position.

Two laps later he dispatched a struggling Frijns for second and then started chasing Rast for the lead, the reigning champion sitting comfortably at front with an advantage of three seconds.

Muller brought the deficit down to under one second on the penultimate lap but failed to sufficiently close in enough to make a move into turn 1, the de facto overtaking point at Lausitzring.

He also appeared too far behind Rast on the final corner, but a great exit allowed him to run virtually side-by-side onto the finish line, falling short of victory by less than a tenth of a second.

The result marked Rast’s first win of the year after he was stripped of his first place finish at Spa due to a push-to-pass infringement.

Wittmann passed Frijns later on in the race to finish third and ensure a second podium for  BMW in as many races after a disappointing season opener at Spa.

Audi’s Mike Rockenfeller was the last driver to pit on lap 21, with the strategic decision allowing him to climb up to fifth, ahead of the BMW pairing of Timo Glock and Philipp Eng.

Loic Duval had a difficult race to finish the lowest among the factory Audi crew in eighth, while BMW’s Jonathan Aberdein and WRT Audi’s Ferdinand Habsburg completing the top 10, the latter dropping down the order after qualifying a strong fourth in his customer RS5.

Jamie Green was the only driver to retire from the race, the DTM veteran’s Audi stopping on lap 37 with mechanical troubles.

Robert Kubica bagged another 13th place finish in the ART-run BMW, ahead of the factory M4s of Lucas Auer and Sheldon van der Linde.

DTM Lausitzring - second race results:

Cla	Driver	Car	Gap
1	René Rast	Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020
2	Nico Müller	Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020	0.089
3	Marco Wittmann	BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020	9.567
4	Robin Frijns	Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020	12.532
5	Mike Rockenfeller	Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020	13.731
6	Timo Glock	BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020	20.395
7	Philipp Eng	BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020	21.193
8	Loic Duval	Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020	25.326
9	Jonathan Aberdein	BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020	26.597
10	Ferdinand Habsburg	Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020	37.074
11	Fabio Scherer	Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020	37.331
12	Harrison Newey	Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020	37.926
13	Robert Kubica	BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020	38.445
14	Lucas Auer	BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020	39.135
15	Sheldon Van Der Linde	BMW M4 Turbo DTM 2020	46.492
16	Jamie Green	Audi RS5 Turbo DTM 2020	6 Laps
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