Audi travels to DTM finale as leader of the manufacturers’ standings

Ingolstadt/Hockenheim, October 12, 2012 - World Champion in the sports prototype category, winner of the 24-hour classics at Le Mans, at the Nürburgring and at Spa: In endurance racing, Audi was the number one in the 2012 season.

In the DTM, the brand with the four rings still has the chance of winning the manufacturers’ title at the Hockenheimring finale on October 21.

Mattias Ekström, ABT Sportsline Audi A5 DTM

Photo by: xpb.cc

At the premiere, Mattias Ekström clinched the first pole position and the first podium for the A5 DTM. In the meantime, the tally reflects three fastest times in qualifying, two victories, nine podium results and 327 points.

With that, Audi is leading the manufacturers’ standings before the last race of the season - 31 points ahead of Mercedes-Benz and 41 ahead of BMW. A manufacturer can still achieve a maximum of 88 points at Hockenheim.

Audi has scored the majority of the points in the second half of the season.

This underscores the fact that following a first half of the season that was less than perfect, the 1990, 1991, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2011 champion has regained its traditional strength after the summer break - not least thanks to the continuous further development of the A5 DTM.

Consequently, the engineers and technicians of Audi Sport are particularly eager to see how the lap times and relative strengths have changed compared with the season opener.

Winning the manufacturer’s championship is the primary aim of the automobile manufacturer from Ingolstadt at Hockenheim.

Among the Audi squads there are a few more stakes involved: Who will finish the season as the best Audi driver? Which squad will be the best Audi team?

All Audi drivers have scored points this year. This has never been the case before ever since the brand returned to the DTM with a manufacturer’s commitment in the 2004 season.

And the three Audi Sport Teams Rosberg, Abt Sportsline and Phoenix are separated by only seven points in the teams’ classification.

So far, Mike Rockenfeller (Audi Sport Team Phoenix) has scored the largest number of points for Audi this year.

The 2010 Le Mans winner was on podium twice and at Zandvoort barely missed his first victory of the season.

The second-best Audi driver in the overall classification is Mattias Ekström (Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline), who won the DTM show race at the Munich Olympic Stadium in July.

Trailing him by a narrow margin is Edoardo Mortara (Audi Sport Team Rosberg), winner of the races at Spielberg and Zandvoort.

Source: Audi Motorspost