Bruno Spengler scored the first DTM podium of the year for BMW when he piloted the #7 Team MTEK M4 DTM to third in the Sunday race at the Norisring. Earlier in the day Spengler had given BMW its first pole of the year.
Spengler led the first thirteen laps under pressure from Mercedes, whose cars were fastest for most of the weekend. Then Robert Wickens, who went on to win the race, powered his Mercedes AMG C63 DTM by Spengler; by the end of the lap Spengler had fallen to fifth. He recovered, pressuring Audi’s Mattias Ekstrom late in the race and moving by him into third near the end. That is where Spengler finished, behind Wickens and Mercedes’ Christian Vietoris. Maxime Martin also scored points for BMW with a tenth place finish in the #36 BMW Team RMG M4.
BMW racers Martin Tomczyk, António Félix da Costa, and Marco Wittmann finished eleventh through thirteenth, and Tom Blomqvist finished sixteenth. Augusto Farfus and Timo Glock were taken out in early-race collisions through no fault of their own.
Three BMWs finished in the points in race one; Spengler and Tomczyk were fifth and sixth and Farfus was eighth. Mercedes’ Pascal Wehrlein won the race.
Audi, which had dominated the first two events of the season, fell back at the Norisring because of performance weight penalties issued as a result of their early success.
Spengler said, “I’m really happy to have finished third, however, I am also a little disappointed as I would, of course, liked to have won the race. Both Mercedes were unbeatable today. I dropped down to fifth, but I fought back and the battle for third with Mattias Ekström was a lot of fun. He actually made a small mistake, which meant I could overtake him in the last few meters. Thank you to my team. We pitted at exactly the right time. Hitting the pit stop window correctly was difficult today. It’s also due to the great strategy that I managed to get onto the podium today.”
DTM runs next at Zandvoort on July 10-12.—Brian S. Morgan
