Why Rast’s pitstop almost went wrong on his way to DTM Nurburgring victory

Rene Rast charged to an unchallenged victory in the DTM at the Nurburgring on Sunday, but the Schubert BMW driver had one major moment of concern during the first pitstop.

“When I arrived there, there was nobody there except my lollipop. And the mechanics were not there,” he said after the race.

The incident wasn’t quite as bad as Rast described it in the post-race press conference. TV footage showed that his crew was already in the pitbox, but the mechanic on the left-hand side of the car was only just taking the wheel gun off its stand.

“So, we lost a bit of time at that stop. I don’t know what went wrong there,” Rast added. “It’s quite unusual to arrive there and just to see the lollipop guy and no tyres. Obviously, I knew I had a big gap to Ben [Dorr]. But I don’t know how long the pitstop was.”

The Schubert BMW driver estimated he “probably lost three, four seconds or more,” and in reality it was stationary for 9.4 seconds, while Dorr’s stop lasted 9.8s, but Schubert BMW team-mate Marco Wittmann’s first stop took just 6.4s.

But why was the Schubert crew, normally known for flawless pitstops, not ready at all?

“The call came a little late because we didn’t know exactly what Lucas Auer was doing before,” team principal Torsten Schubert told Autosport sister site Motorsport-Total.com. “That’s why it wasn’t clear in which order we would pit. And then the call for the crew to go out came a little too late.

“Unfortunately, that was a small faux pas in the race. But luckily the two seconds didn’t hurt us because the gap was [big enough]. I then told everyone, guys, everything’s fine, everything’s safe, we have enough of a lead.”

Despite the scare, Rast rejoined the track still in the lead after the first stop, allowing him to make perfect use of his tyre advantage following Saturday’s start-line crash and cruise to his 30th DTM victory.