Alex Albon scored his maiden victory in DTM at the Nürburgring, the second win for Ferrari in the history of the series.
In an incident-strewn race, the Thai/ British driver, who had started from pole position, stayed away from all the incidents and won in a dominant fashion.
Red Bull’s reserve Formula 1 driver is the sixth winner from eight DTM races held so far this season. In dry, good weather conditions, Spaniard Daniel Juncadella with the Mercedes-AMG of the GruppeM team and two-time DTM champion Marco Wittmann with the Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW rounded out the podium.
After eight of 16 races, Kelvin van der Linde of the ABT Sportsline Audi team leads the points charge though, on Sunday, the South African failed to score points for the first time this year after a collision with Liam Lawson and Mike Rockenfeller in the chicane.
His 129 points though see him start the second half of the season with a substantial margin over Maximilian Götz (96). Third in the standings is now Wittmann (94), Albon (82) has moved up to fourth place.
The SSR Performance Porsche, meanwhile, had more bad luck during its DTM début. Like on Saturday, Michael Ammermüller didn’t make it to the finish. 19-year-old Belgian Esteban Muth scored the best result of the season for Lamborghini so far with fifth place. Ex-Formula 1 driver Timo Glock finally scored his first championship points of the season with the ROWE Racing BMW.
“Today, that was a really good day for my team and for myself,” Albon said. “The team has been working hard overnight and that paid off. Today, we have made a step forward, we want to carry over this momentum.” The Red Bull Ferrari combination by AF Corse is the first team to have won races with both its drivers, Albon and Lawson, this year.
From first place on the grid, Alex Albon charged into the lead with the AlphaTauri Ferrari and led the field, from Daniel Juncadella (ESP/GruppeM-Mercedes-AMG) and Michael Ammermüller (GER/SSR Performance) with Porsche.
On the opening lap, however, the first incident followed as Philip Ellis slid through the gravel trap and then spread several carbon parts across the track. Maximilian Buhk then took a hit and ended up in the pit wall, after which the safety car was deployed for the first time.
The restart followed after lap three, Albon again pulled away. In the second corner, there was more incident with Ammermüller, Luca Stolz with the Toksport Mercedes-AMG, Ellis and Götz.
After the first pit stops, guest driver Hubert Haupt, who made his comeback after his DTM campaigns in 1991/1992 and 2001, saw the Mercedes-AMG of his HRT team grind to a halt with technical failure, the safety car came out once again, leaving the eight drivers yet to make their mandatory pit stop yet at a significant disadvantage.
Liam Lawson triggered the next incident, making an optimistic manoeuvre in the chicane, putting the pair of ABT Audis of Kelvin van der Linde and Mike Rockenfeller into retirement, Lawson incurred a drive-through penalty. Having arrived as runner-up in the points’ standings, 19-year-old Red Bull junior driver Lawson left the Nürburgring empty-handed.
All of that left Christian Klien in the JP Motorsport McLaren in the lead. Albon, however, closed up soon after the Safety Car withdrew and claimed back the race lead in dominant fashion with Juncadella and Wittmann in tow.
“That was really extreme at times today. Partly, we were racing with up to five cars abreast, that was heavy. I have never experienced something like that in DTM before, but nevertheless, it was great fun,” Wittmann reported. “In moments like that, it is always important to make the right judgement between taking risk and being cautious. Today, we managed that quite well.”
DTM continues in a fortnight at the Red Bull Ring in Austria from 3-5 September.
