Only 96 thousandths of a second separated Maximilian Götz and Liam Lawson at the end of the official three-day DTM test at Lausitzring.
The New Zealander, only 19 years old, eventually just missed out on the top position in his Red Bull Ferrari leaving Götz in his Mercedes-AMG Team HRT AMG GT3 with the fastest time of the day for the third day in a row.
The eight fastest times across the three days were posted in the final session on Thursday afternoon after a total of almost 3,000 laps of the 4.570 kilometres long DEKRA Lausitzring from the 12 DTM teams present with 17 drivers and 15 cars.
“Of course, I am super happy, not just with the result, but also with the progress we have made. We have achieved everything we wanted to achieve in testing,” Maximilian Götz summed up. “Being on top three times is a cool feeling, obviously, but it doesn’t say anything at all. We will only find out where we really are during the season opener at Monza. It will definitely be exciting.” Together with partner AVL Racing, the DTM umbrella organisation ITR also used these test days to acquire valuable data for the balancing of the cars.
Tuesday morning saw Philip Ellis as the first driver to top the time sheets in the three-day test in his Mercedes-AMG GT3 run by the WINWARD team, the DTM newcomer completed his fastest lap in 1m45.816s. His Spanish fellow Mercedes driver Daniel Juncadella (GruppeM, 1m46.209s) followed in second place, ex-champion Mike Rockenfeller (GER, 1m46.319) followed in third place with the ABT Sportsline Audi R8 LMS.
The fastest Ferrari driver on Tuesday Morning was Red Bull Formula 1 man Alex Albon (THA, 1m48.961s) in sixth while Timo Glock (GER, ROWE Racing) was the best-placed BMW driver, classified ninth with 1m50.163s.
However, lap times were hardly meaningful because rain already slowed down the pace after only a few laps and the drivers then concentrated on testing in wet track conditions. Still, DTM returnee Maximilian Götz (GER, Mercedes-AMG Team HRT) racked up 49 laps and was the busiest driver in the morning, followed by his teammate Vincent Abril (MON) with 46 laps.
Tuesday afternoon though saw Gotz make his mark with a time of 1m43.840s late in the afternoon session as the wet conditions from the morning improved.
“We have done our homework. After the rain in the morning, we concentrated on a baseline set-up in the dry during the afternoon and then did a qualifying run with fresh tyres at the end that put us in P1,” said Götz, who drove a full DTM season in 2016. With a total of 94 laps completed on Tuesday, 49 in the morning and 45 in the afternoon, Götz was also the busiest driver on the first of the three test days.
Next up were his fellow Mercedes drivers Daniel Juncadella (ESP, Gruppe M), Philip Ellis (SUI, WINWARD), Lucas Auer (AUT, WINWARD) and Arjun Maini (IND, GetSpeed).
With Alexander Albon (THA) and Nick Cassidy (NZL) in sixth and seventh place, two of the three Red Bull drivers from the AF Corse Ferrari team also ended up in the top ten. Next up was South African Kelvin van der Linde with the Audi R8 LMS of the ABT Sportsline team. The fastest BMW driver was two-time DTM champion Marco Wittmann (GER, Walkenhorst Motorsport) in eleventh place.
Next to set-up work for qualifying and tests with rain tyres in the morning, the teams also completed extensive long runs as part of their various test programmes.
Maximilian Götz was the fastest driver again on Wednesday, the second day of the official DTM test. With the Haupt Racing Team Mercedes-AMG GT3, the DTM returnee completed his best lap of the 4.570 kilometres long DEKRA Lausitzring in 1m43.645s.
In cool, but largely ideal weather conditions, Red Bull drivers Alexander Albon (THA, 1m45.468s) and Liam Lawson (NZL, 1m43.651s) rounded out the top three with AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3 Evos. The most prolific professional of the day was ex-champion Mike Rockenfeller. With the ABT Sportsline Audi R8 LMS, the German came to a total of 91 laps, 44 in the morning and 47 in the afternoon.
The mix of the drivers in the first seven positions was also impressive as seven different countries were represented. Next to Germany, Thailand and New Zealand, these included Switzerland (Philip Ellis, Mercedes-AMG Team WINWARD), Austria (Lucas Auer, Mercedes-AMG Team WINWARD), Monaco (Vincent Abril, Mercedes-AMG Team HRT) and India (Arjun Maini, Mercedes-AMG Team GetSpeed). Rockenfeller, runner-up Nico Müller (Audi, Team Rosberg) and two-time champion Gary Paffett (GBR, Mercedes-AMG Team Mücke) rounded out the top ten.
“Again, another good test day with the fastest time. We have completed our programme, the car is handling really well. We are getting sorted, we are doing pit stop practice, qualifying simulations, long runs: all these things need to be tested after all,” Maximilian Götz, twice the fastest driver of the day, commented. “Today, we really drove a lot. On the final test day, we want to further optimise our pit stops.”
In addition to the cars at the test there was news too of a sixth brand to join the 2021 DTM field with Dresden-based team T3 Motorsport adding a Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo for 19-year-old Belgian Esteban Muth.
Born in Uccle near Brussels, the driver was successful in karting before making the transition to single-seater racing in 2018. There, he also got experience at an international level, among others in Japanese Formula 3 and the Castrol Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand where he also raced against current DTM drivers Liam Lawson, Lucas Auer and Dev Gore. Muth already competed in various GT races as well and is also very much involved in esports.
