Race report

DTM Nurburgring

Nurburgring DTM: Rast seals title, Green ends win drought

Audi's Rene Rast claimed his second DTM title with a third-place finish in Sunday's Nurburgring race, as Jamie Green survived a late challenge from Robin Frijns to win.

Tom Errington

Edited: Sep 15, 2019, 7:06 PM

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René Rast, Audi Sport Team Rosberg, Audi RS 5 DTM

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

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