Clean sweep

Audi Sport has opened its 2019 DTM (German Touring Car Masters) season with a dominant performance at the Hockenheimring, with a double podium in the first race on a very wet Saturday, followed by a conclusive one-two-three result on Sunday.

This new season is the first see the new four-cylinder turbo cars replacing the V8 models, the new Audi RS 5 DTM leaving no one in any doubt it will be the car to beat this year.

René Rast was in scintillating form, coming from 16th position on the grid to claim his 11th DTM victory, racing through almost the entire field to stake his claim on the top position.

“Overtaking nearly the whole field on a few laps is especially good fun for a race driver,” said Rast at the end of the race. “Many thanks to Audi Sport, to my Rosberg team and to the mechanics who gave their all. We had a brilliant strategy today. I just had to drive the car home. What a day!” 

He chose a good time to show his prowess, with Bram Schot, CEO of AUDI AG looking on and obviously impressed by the performance of all of the Audi teams over the weekend.

“I really enjoyed this. The atmosphere, the enthusiasm for the series, the plus in performance – this tastes moreish,” he said after the dominant Audi performance.

Head of Audi Motorsport Dieter Gass was looking for the right words after the finish: “Honestly, I’m rather speechless. After the qualifying, we weren’t able to expect such a result. With René, we chose an aggressive strategy. The times he set driving through the field are incredible. But Nico [Müller] and Robin [Frijns] drove a strong race as well. It’s a fantastic result for Audi and sweet confirmation for the hard work over the last few months. And for the DTM it was a successful start to the turbo era.” 

Nico Müller and Robin Frijns, who both started the race from the second row and with different strategies finished almost simultaneously in positions two and three, completed Audi’s podium lockout. Müller pulled off a sensational start from fourth to second while Frijns (who won his first Formula E race last weekend in an Audi FE05 e-tron) dropped to seventh before racing back to finish on the podium. 

The icing on the cake for Audi at the Hockenheimring was the fastest race lap recorded by Pietro Fittipaldi, driving for the WRT Audi Sport customer team in his just his second DTM race. 

Audi now leads the DTM manufacturers’ standings with with Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline in from in the teams classification and Robin Frijns second in the drivers’ classification. 

The next two DTM races will be held at Zolder, Belgium, on May 18 and19.