Defending champion also wins Sundayâs race at the NĂźrburgring
Maximum points haul and third place in the overall standings
Head of Audi Motorsport Dieter Gass: âFantastic for RenĂŠ, fantastic for AudiâÂ
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Audi driver RenĂŠ Rast achieved the perfect DTM weekend at the NĂźrburgring: As he did on Saturday, the defending champion also claimed pole position and victory on Sunday. As a result, he scored the maximum possible points with his Audi RS 5 DTM and moved up to third overall in the overall standings. 56 points in two days! This had never been the case in the DTM since the current race format was introduced. Six thousandths of a second made it possible: Rast grabbed pole position on Sunday from championship leader Gary Paffett in Mercedes-Benz by this miniscule amount, and in doing so claimed the first three points of the day. 25 more followed after a commanding drive to victory, the sixth so far in his DTM career. Rast made yet another perfect start from pole position. On the opening lap he cleverly held Gary Paffett behind him, before making good his escape and subsequently benefitting from the skirmishes in the chasing pack. After all the pit stops had been made, the German from Audi Sport Team Rosberg held a lead of over eight seconds, which he managed to the flag. Rast took the checkered flag 2.739 seconds ahead of current second placed championship contender Paul Di Resta in Mercedes-Benz. Afterwards he was presented the winnerâs trophy by FIA President Jean Todt. âThe race was just as hard as it was on Saturday,â said Rast. âI really had to fight hard with the car in the end. But we took the maximum points haul and third place in the championship. It was an unbelievable weekend with two poles and two wins. Iâm stuck for words!â |
| âItâs absolutely incredible, Iâm speechless as well,â said Head of Audi Motorsport Dieter Gass. âTwo wins and two pole positions for RenĂŠ (Rast) â I donât know how he does it. Obviously itâs fantastic for RenĂŠ, but also fantastic for Audi. After the difficult start to the season we couldnât really expect this. We never gave up and improved the car little by little within the confines of the limited possibilities that the regulations allow.â
With Robin Frijns from Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline another Audi driver scored points in the Sundayâs race. The Dutchman fought from the last row of the grid to tenth position. In the process he benefitted from innumerable skirmishes and collisions through which four of his stablemates â LoĂŻc Duval, Mike Rockenfeller, Nico MĂźller and Jamie Green â also dropped back down the running order. They finished eleventh, twelfth, 13 and 15 respectively. |
