Audi takes triple in 2017 DTM

Before the final race had even been contested in this year’s DTM Championship (German Touring Car Masters), Audi had already achieved the clean sweep – winning the manufacturers’, teams’ and drivers’ classifications. The only thing left to decide on the Sunday, was which Audi driver would take the title, given that the brand had three drivers all in the mix and able to win the championship with the right result.

The smart money probably wasn’t on 30-year-old René, if only because it was his rookie season, and the last rookie to go through and take a championship on debut was Italian Nicola Larini, 24 years ago.

History now shows that if you’d put the house on Mattias Ekström or Jamie Green taking top honours, you would have lost. Rast becomes only the seventh campaigner in the history of the popular touring car series to have won the prestigious title in his rookie season, the driver from Minden having only contested three DTM races before the 2017 season. In July 2016, at Zandvoort, he stood in at Audi Sport Team Rosberg for Adrien Tambay, literally overnight. Without any preparation, Rast left such a good impression that in the 2016 finale at Hockenheim he was allowed to stand in for Mattias Ekström.

Fast forward 12 months and Rast, on the finish straight, snatched the DTM title from Mattias Ekström, of all rivals. With sixth place on Saturday and 2nd place on Sunday, Rast managed to convert a 21-point deficit to the Swede into a razor-thin 3-point advantage.
“René drove an incredible season,” says Head of Audi Motorsport Dieter Gass. “There was good reason why we brought him into our DTM squad and we expected him to deliver good performances. But that he’d be battling for the title right in his first DTM year – and even winning it in the end – that’s something no-one really expected, not even by René himself.” 

René Rast’s 2017 rookie season was impressive. From the Hockenheim season opener he started from the front row for the first time, followed two weeks later with the first podium in his young DTM career and then the first victory on the third race weekend at Budapest. At Moscow and at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Rast managed to clinch two more victories. His tally for the season also includes three pole positions and a total of four fastest race laps. 

“My goal was to become the best rookie,” says René Rast. “I wanted to learn, regularly score points and always finish a race well. Before the season, who’d have thought that I’d instantly be battling for the title? That’s why, in the finale, I actually couldn’t lose anymore. I approached the weekend without pressure and now am overjoyed that it all worked out. My thanks go to Audi who gave me the opportunity to enter the DTM at the age of 30 and this fantastic car, to Team Rosberg in which I felt comfortable from day one and also to my teammate, Jamie Green. He’s one of the fastest drivers in the DTM and once again suffered incredible misfortune.” 

Rast’s unusual career within the Volkswagen Group took him from the Polo Cup all the way to Le Mans and now also into the DTM. He won the Porsche Supercup held as part of the Formula 1 supporting program an amazing three times. Since 2011, he has been active under the banner of the four rings. At the wheel of the Audi R8 LMS GT3 sports car, he is regarded as the measure of all things and a driver to guarantee success. His victories in the 24-hour races at Daytona, Spa and at the Nürburgring underline this, as do a title win in the ADAC GT Masters and now the DTM title.