Motorsport Arena Oschersleben hosted the first day of the final official ITR test for the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM), where defending champion Marco Wittmann posted the fastest time around the 3.667-km track.
The Team RMG improved on his efforts in the morning, posting a 1:19.913 lap, over two tenths quicker than Mercedes’ fastest driver of the day, Robert Wickens.
“Overall, that wasn’t a bad day of testing today. We had a lot to do and were able to work through our programme,” said last year’s winner at Norisring. “Lap times aren’t all that significant in testing. I’m already looking forward to Hockenheim.”
Team MTEK’s Timo Glock rounded out the top three, just 9 thousands of a second behind the Canadian, whilst being ahead of fellow BMW Motorsport drivers António Félix da Costa and Tom Blomqvist, who rounded out the top five.
The busiest driver out on track today was Team Phoenix’s Timo Schieder, who completed a total of 172 laps, but would only post the tenth fastest time.
The fastest driver from Audi Sport was Swiss racer Nico Müller in eighth, who was just over six tenths off the pace set by Wittmann. Müller was mere fractions behind both Gary Paffett and Christian Vietoris.
There was a disruption to the afternoon session early on, as Maximillan Götz’s Mercedes C63 AMG broke down out on track, forcing his testing program for the day to be ended rather early. Mercedes did confirm via Twitter that it was down to a technical issue.
Despite the lack of running, Götz was able to complete 94 laps, ending up just ahead of Team Abt’s Edoardo Mortara, whose Audi RS5 DTM was in the garage for the majority of the afternoon. Mortara was over a second and half off the pace, as the Italian found himself last on the time sheets.
Testing continues tomorrow morning at 9am local time (CET).
| POS | NO | DRIVER | NAT | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 1 | Marco WITTMANN |  |
BMW Team RMG | BMW M4 DTM | 164 | 1:19.913 | 0.000 |
| 2 | 6 | Robert WICKENS |  |
FREE MAN’S WORLD AMG Mercedes | DTM Mercedes AMG C-Coupé | 126 | 1:20.133 | 0.220 |
| 3 | 16 | Timo GLOCK | |
BMW Team MTEK | BMW M4 DTM | 129 | 1:20.142 | 0.229 |
| 4 | 13 | António Félix da COSTA |  |
BMW Team Schnitzer | BMW M4 DTM | 112 | 1:20.297 | 0.384 |
| 5 | 31 | Tom BLOMQVIST |  |
BMW Team RBM | BMW M4 DTM | 104 | 1:20.345 | 0.432 |
| 6 | 2 | Gary PAFFETT | |
EURONICS AMG Mercedes | DTM Mercedes AMG C-Coupé | 124 | 1:20.353 | 0.440 |
| 7 | 8 | Christian VIETORIS | |
Original-Teile AMG Mercedes | DTM Mercedes AMG C-Coupé | 146 | 1:20.530 | 0.617 |
| 8 | 51 | Nico MÜLLER |  |
Audi Sport Team Rosberg | Audi RS5 DTM | 97 | 1:20.541 | 0.628 |
| 9 | 5 | Mattias EKSTRÖM |  |
Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline | Audi RS5 DTM | 140 | 1:20.547 | 0.634 |
| 10 | 10 | Timo SCHEIDER | |
Audi Sport Team Phoenix | Audi RS5 DTM | 172 | 1:20.564 | 0.651 |
| 11 | 84 | Maximilian GÖTZ | |
AMG Mercedes | DTM Mercedes AMG C-Coupé | 94 | 1:20.982 | 1.069 |
| 12 | 48 | Edoardo MORTARA |  |
Audi Sport Team Abt | Audi RS5 DTM | 29 | 1:21.570 | 1.657 |