Robert Wickens continues Mercedes’ winning ways at Norisring

The second race of the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters weekend at the Norisring saw Mercedes’ Robert Wickens become the fourth winner of the 2015 season, ahead of stablemate Christian Vietoris and race two pole sitter Bruno Spengler.

The Canadian took command of the 60-minute race just after the mandatory pitstop and was able to keep Vietoris at bay to take the win.

Spengler, who initially led the field away at the start but lost four places in just one lap, was able to robustly force his way past best Audi finisher Mattias Ekström with just two laps left to go to salvage a podium result.

There was action from the very start, as Mike Rockenfeller made contact with BMW’s Augusto Farfus into Turn one, forcing both drivers to retire. At the same corner, Mercedes’ Maximilian Götz missed his braking point and speared into the back of BMW’s Timo Glock.

The next lap saw the deployment of the Safety Car as a result of the incident between Götz and Glock. Götz would also retire, due to radiator damage.

Audi’s Adrien Tambay was an unfortunate victim, as Glock hit him, with the ex-Toyota F1 driver losing the bonnet on his M4 DTM before retiring.

The last retirement of the race was Team Rosberg’s Nico Müller, who parked his RS5 DTM in the garage on Lap 66, having made excessive contact with the wall.

Points leader Jamie Green finished in 19^th place, as a result of contact with Maxime Martin, whilst the pair were fighting hard for ninth place, ahead of Lucas Auer, who received a five-second penalty for being on the wrong place on the grid.

Green would end up pitting for a new set of tyres, because of the puncture suffered in the contact with Martin. Martin would later find himself in tenth, as Auer surged past the Belgian in the dying laps of the race.

Pascal Wehrlein battled with Paul di Resta in the latter stages, with the pair finishing fifth and sixth respectively, as both Gary Paffett and Daniel Juncadella seventh and eighth, showing Mercedes’ resurgent strength around the Nuremberg street track. It has been unbroken since 2003, where Christijan Albers took the win.

With seven of their cars in the top ten, Mercedes has now closed the gap to Audi Sport to just 48 points, as a result of Ekström being the only Ingolstadt driver to score points this afternoon.

Green still leads the title race on 81 points, with Ekström 11 points behind. Wehrlein is now just a further three points behind, having moved ahead of Edoardo Mortara.

The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters now head to the sands of the Netherlands in a fortnight’s time, as Zandvoort will host races seven and eight between the 10^th and 12^th of July.

Race result

POS	NO	DRIVER	NAT	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME/GAP	BEST	GD
1	6	Robert WICKENS		SILBERPFEIL Energy Mercedes-AMG	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	74	1:01:35.767	48.178	3
2	8	Christian VIETORIS		gooix / Original-Teile Mercedes-AMG	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	74	7.239	48.404	2
3	7	Bruno SPENGLER		BMW Team MTEK	BMW M4 DTM	74	10.975	48.459	1
4	5	Mattias EKSTRÖM		Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline	Audi RS5 DTM	74	11.595	48.585	4
5	94	Pascal WEHRLEIN		gooix / Original-Teile Mercedes-AMG	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	74	14.956	48.534	6
6	3	Paul di RESTA		SILBERPFEIL Energy Mercedes-AMG	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	74	15.378	48.526	8
7	2	Gary PAFFETT		EURONICS / BWT Mercedes-AMG	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	74	16.098	48.561	11
8	12	Daniel JUNCADELLA		PETRONAS Mercedes-AMG	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	74	17.489	48.436	10
9	22	Lucas AUER		EURONICS / BWT Mercedes-AMG	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	74	32.871	48.536	5
10	36	Maxime MARTIN		BMW Team RMG	BMW M4 DTM	74	34.605	48.739	9
11	77	Martin TOMCZYK		BMW Team Schnitzer	BMW M4 DTM	74	38.455	48.898	21
12	13	António Félix da COSTA		BMW Team Schnitzer	BMW M4 DTM	74	38.937	48.719	17
13	1	Marco WITTMANN		BMW Team RMG	BMW M4 DTM	74	47.827	48.843	22
14	27	Adrien TAMBAY		Audi Sport Team Abt	Audi RS5 DTM	73	1L	48.923	13
15	48	Edoardo MORTARA		Audi Sport Team Abt	Audi RS5 DTM	73	1L	48.888	18
16	31	Tom BLOMQVIST		BMW Team RBM	BMW M4 DTM	73	1L	48.906	20
17	10	Timo SCHEIDER		Audi Sport Team Phoenix	Audi RS5 DTM	73	1L	48.883	23
18	17	Miguel MOLINA		Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline	Audi RS5 DTM	73	1L	48.994	24
19	53	Jamie GREEN		Audi Sport Team Rosberg	Audi RS5 DTM	73	1L	48.692	7
20	51	Nico MÜLLER		Audi Sport Team Rosberg	Audi RS5 DTM	65	9L	48.923	15
R	16	Timo GLOCK		BMW Team MTEK	BMW M4 DTM	3	71L	51.108	14
R	84	Maximilian GÖTZ		PETRONAS Mercedes-AMG	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	2	72L	N/A	16
R	18	Augusto FARFUS		BMW Team RBM	BMW M4 DTM	1	73L	N/A	12
R	99	Mike ROCKENFELLER		Audi Sport Team Phoenix	Audi RS5 DTM	1	73L	N/A	19

Complete race results