Winward Mercedes driver Maro Engel bounced back from a difficult Saturday to end the Red Bull Ring DTM weekend with a victory.
Having finished only third in the season opener due to a botched pitstop, Engel made amends on Sunday as he converted fifth place into a race win.
“This is obviously very special, especially after what happened yesterday,” the three-time DTM race winner told ran.de, referring to the unfortunate pitstop on Saturday. “I’m incredibly proud of my team. This is exactly how we wanted to come back, and that makes today’s victory perhaps even sweeter.”
With this victory, the German driver broke a long-standing Mercedes curse in Austria. The last time the Stuttgart-based brand celebrated a DTM victory in Styria was 23 years ago, when Marcel Fassler triumphed aboard the CLK-DTM 2003.
Behind Engel, who also takes the early championship lead, Schubert-BMW driver Marco Wittmann and local hero Lucas Auer (Landgraf-Mercedes) completed the podium.
Jules Gounon (Winward-Mercedes) finished fourth, followed by Nicki Thiim in the Comtoyou Aston Martin in fifth. Polesitter Kelvin van der Linde (Schubert-BMW) ultimately finished only sixth after two poorly timed pitstops.
Track Action
Photo by: ADAC Motorsport
The BMW driver was “pretty angry” after the race, saying “I think we just didn’t do certain things right today and we paid the price for it in the end” in an interview with ran.de. “From my perspective, it was the wrong decision twice.”
Ben Dorr (Dorr-McLaren) finished in seventh place after his unfortunate retirement the previous day, while DTM rookie Finn Wiebelhaus (HRT-Ford), Thierry Vermeulen (Emil-Frey-Ferrari) and Bastian Buus (Land-Porsche) completed the top 10.
As on Saturday, there were no major incidents at the start, allowing van der Linde to hold on the lead from pole position, but he was unable to break away from the rest of the field in the early stages. Engel put the BMW driver under pressure early on, but couldn’t find a way past the South African. Behind them, the first drivers were already coming into the pits for the first of their two mandatory tyre changes.
The top four, who had by now closed up tightly, stayed out for a long time. Engel, Auer and Wiebelhaus came into the pits at the same time, but the order remained unchanged. BMW rider Wittmann, who had already stopped four laps earlier and therefore already had his tyres up to temperature, overtook Wiebelhaus and Auer.
Race leader van der Linde was the last driver to make his first tyre change, and the Schubert team made no mistakes during the pitstop. However, the undercut by the competition paid off: both Engel and his team-mate Wittmann overtook the polesitter, who dropped back to third place.
By the second mandatory pitstop, Engel had pulled away at the front by almost two seconds, while Wittmann and van der Linde rekindled the BMW internal duel from the previous day. The polesitter was clearly faster and put his Schubert team-mate under pressure, but couldn’t find a way past.
Maro Engel, Mercedes-AMG Team Ravenol Mercedes-AMG EVO GT3
Photo by: ADAC Motorsport
Engel and van der Linde were the first drivers from the leading group to make their second pitstop. A lap later, Wittmann, Auer, Thiim, and Gounon followed, with the Landgraf team’s stop going better than the Comtoyou team’s, allowing the “Mamba” to overtake Thiim.
Engel defended his lead confidently after the mandatory pitstop, while van der Linde initially dropped back to fourth place after his pitstop. In the closing stages, the polesitter came under increasing pressure: first from Gounon and Thiim who both overtook him minutes before the finish.
The next DTM race will take place in four weeks, when the GT3 series visits the dune circuit Zandvoort on 22-24 May.
DTM Red Bull Ring – Race 2 results
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– The Autosport.com Team
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