Nurburgring DTM: Rast seals title, Green ends win drought

While Green held off a charging Frijns to end a near-two-year victory drought, the title race swung back and forth throughout.

Rast had to outscore Nico Muller by seven points after qualifying second in the morning had earned him an extra two points over Muller, who could only qualify 14th.

On the run to the Turn 1 right-hander, the title race looked as good as over when Rast made a perfect getaway to storm past Green and into the lead.

But Green never fell more than a second behind Rast throughout the opening phase of the race, and he jumped back ahead of Rast and into the net lead following the pitstops.

Green had gained an advantage by completing his pitstop in 7.4 seconds - 1.5s quicker than Rast a lap before - to emerge ahead of his Team Rosberg Audi teammate.

Rast's failure to repass Green opened the door for Muller to keep his slim title hopes alive. The Swiss driver had made it into the top 10 by the ninth lap of 41 and then became the second-earliest driver to pit in a bid to make further progress.

As the pitstop strategies began to shake out, Muller had done enough to keep the title race alive by a single point, running fourth and two places behind Rast.

But the older tyres began to tell in the later stages of the race - with Frijns helping settle the title race by sweeping past Muller at Turn 1.

While Rast would fall to third as Frijns's new-tyre advantage showed, a late pass from WRT Audi's Jonathan Aberdein on Muller on the run to the Coca-Cola Kurve demoted Muller to sixth - and ensured Rast's third place would be enough for the title.

Frijns would continue to make progress and closed from within almost three seconds off Green to making a move on the penultimate lap, but he could not stop Green taking his first DTM win since the second Hockenheim round in 2017.

Loic Duval, Aberdein, Muller and Mike Rockenfeller ensured an all-Audi top seven, as Philipp Eng placed as the best BMW in eighth.

Timo Glock recovered from being punted into a spin by BMW stablemate Sheldon van der Linde at Turn 1 to finish ninth ahead of Bruno Spengler.

Daniel Juncadella was the lead R-Motorsport Aston Martin in 12th, with Paul di Resta failing to start the race due to an engine problem.

Marco Wittmann was the only retirement, having come to a stop at the Mercedes Arena not long after his pitstop before continuing.

The problem would repeat itself later on before Wittmann pulled his BMW into the pits 12 laps from the finish, with his title hopes already over by that point.

Race results:

Cla	#	Driver	Car	Laps	Gap
1	53	Jamie Green	Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM	41
2	4	Robin Frijns	Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM	41	0.442
3	33	René Rast	Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM	41	5.827
4	28	Loic Duval	Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM	41	10.813
5	27	Jonathan Aberdein	Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM	41	11.121
6	51	Nico Müller	Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM	41	12.410
7	99	Mike Rockenfeller	Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM	41	12.753
8	25	Philipp Eng	BMW M4 Turbo DTM	41	19.886
9	16	Timo Glock	BMW M4 Turbo DTM	41	27.159
10	7	Bruno Spengler	BMW M4 Turbo DTM	41	27.675
11	47	Joel Eriksson	BMW M4 Turbo DTM	41	29.974
12	23	Daniel Juncadella	Aston Martin Vantage DTM	41	30.660
13	21	Pietro Fittipaldi	Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM	41	31.625
14	76	Jake Dennis	Aston Martin Vantage DTM	41	32.0
15	62	Ferdinand Habsburg	Aston Martin Vantage DTM	41	32.449
16	31	Sheldon Van Der Linde	BMW M4 Turbo DTM	41	51.534
	11	Marco Wittmann	BMW M4 Turbo DTM	29	12 Laps
View full results