Two-time champion Marco Wittmann scored his first win of the season at the third DTM race weekend of the year in Walkenhorst Motorsport’s BMW M6 GT3 team.
Wittmann finished the Sunday race ahead of Maximilian Götz with the HRT Mercedes-AMG and Liam Lawson with the Red Bull Ferrari.
For Wittmann, who had claimed his 15th pole earlier in the day, it was the 16th victory of his DTM career, his most recent win dating from 2019 at Brands Hatch. In 2020, BMW had a rather disappointing DTM season with only two wins and had declared on several occasions prior to the races at Zolder that the track didn’t suit the BMW.
Pole position and the victory were all the more surprising as a result!
In the championship, Kelvin van der Linde remains in the lead. The South African had won the race on Saturday with the ABT Audi and finished eighth on Sunday.
Wittmann made clever use of his first place on the grid and immediately took the lead.
As in the Saturday race, the field didn’t make it through the opening lap without dramas. On the first lap of the race, Philip Ellis with the WINWARD Mercedes tapped his fellow Mercedes-AMG driver Vincent Abril (Team HRT) into a spin. The Monegasque was able to continue, but his car then grounded to a halt in the paddock chicane which prompted a safety car intervention.
Wittmann also defended his lead at the restart from Lucas Auer in the WINWARD Mercedes-AMG. Behind Kelvin van der Linde with the ABT Audi, Lawson had already moved up with the Red Bull Ferrari. After the pit stops, Wittmann also defended his lead from Auer. The Austrian incurred a five-second time penalty for a pit stop infringement and therefore lost his second place before the end of the race already. He was classified fifth. All drivers having completed their mandatory stops, the initial order remained intact with Wittmann leading Auer, then Maximilian Götz with the HRT Mercedes-AMG, Lawson and Nico Müller with the Rosberg Audi.
In front of a home crowd, Esteban Muth shone with a spirited performance. With the T3 Lamborghini, the 19-year-old showed several breath-taking overtaking manoeuvres at a track where overtaking is said to be difficult. His teammate Esmee Hawkey was strong, too, temporarily running in the point-scoring positions but eventually finishing 13th.
Qualifying on Sunday morning had been rather unusual. Timo Glock’s ROWE BMW having grounded to a halt on track due to a technical failure, qualifying was stopped with the red flag with a little over two minutes remaining and not resumed. That led to an unexpected order with the first pole position of the season for Marco Wittmann and Walkenhorst Motorsport. For Wittmann, it was his 15th DTM career pole. Austrian Lucas Auer (Mercedes-AMG, Team WINWARD), German Mike Rockenfeller (Audi, ABT Sportsline) and his teammate Kelvin van der Linde (RSA, Audi) rounded out the first two grid rows.
Daniel Juncadella was fifth-fastest with the GruppeM Mercedes, but had to start from 15th on the grid as he was given a ten-place grid drop as a penalty for having caused a collision on the opening lap of the Saturday race.
