Mercedes’ Christian Vietoris ended the third day of the official Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters test in Hungary as the fastest driver, beating BMW’s Marco Wittmann by 0.376 seconds.
Vietoris, entering his fourth season in the DTM, headed a trio of BMW drivers led by Wittmann, Timo Glock and Ausuto Farfus. Vietoris’ time was 0.044 seconds faster than the previous quickest time, set by Nico Müller on Tuesday. Pascal Wehrlein was fifth fastest in his newly-liveried gooix Mercedes.
In contrast to the previous two days of testing, the fastest Audi driver was only sixth. Frenchman Adrien Tambay had set the pace in the morning session, but dropped to 0.553 seconds off the pace by the end of the day.
Speaking after the day’s testing, Tambay said: “I think that the Hungaroring is an excellent track for the DTM and we’ll be able to give the fans here a fantastic show. It was great to see just how many spectators were here during the test days – I was pleasantly surprised. I’m already looking forward to the race on June 1, especially as I was quick out of the box.
“The new Audi RS 5 DTM functions very well. Although we didn’t drive as much today as we did on the first day, we were once again able to complete several long runs and learn a huge amount as well. Overall it was a positive test. We have something to build on.”
Ten of the 12 drivers in action were within a second of Vietoris’ pace, with only the two Mercedes of Robert Wickens and Daniel Juncadella outside the one-second window.
The final day of testing at the Hungaroring takes place on Thursday and will return to the normal finish time of 17:00 CEST.
Times – day three
| POS | NO | DRIVER | NAT | ENTRANT | CAR | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 5 | Christian VIETORIS |  |
Original-Teile AMG Mercedes | DTM Mercedes-Benz AMG C-Coupé | 1:37.461 | |
| 2 | 23 | Marco WITTMANN | |
BMW Team RMG | BMW M4 DTM | 1:37.837 | 0.376 |
| 3 | 17 | Timo GLOCK | |
BMW Team MTEK | BMW M4 DTM | 1:37.861 | 0.400 |
| 4 | 3 | Augusto FARFUS |  |
BMW Team RBM | BMW M4 DTM | 1:38.895 | 0.434 |
| 5 | 25 | Pascal WEHRLEIN | |
gooix Mercedes AMG | DTM Mercedes-Benz AMG C-Coupé | 1:38.002 | 0.541 |
| 6 | 11 | Adrien TAMBAY |  |
Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline | Audi RS5 DTM | 1:38.014 | 0.553 |
| 7 | 22 | Nico MÜLLER |  |
Audi Sport Team Rosberg | Audi RS5 DTM | 1:38.069 | 0.608 |
| 8 | 2 | Timo SCHEIDER | |
Audi Sport Team Phoenix | Audi RS5 DTM | 1:38.167 | 0.706 |
| 9 | 8 | Miguel MOLINA |  |
Audi Sport Team Phoenix | Audi RS5 DTM | 1:38.187 | 0.726 |
| 10 | 10 | Martin TOMCZYK | |
BMW Team Schnitzer | BMW M4 DTM | 1:38.417 | 0.956 |
| 11 | 6 | Robert WICKENS |  |
stihl AMG Mercedes | DTM Mercedes-Benz AMG C-Coupé | 1:38.901 | 1.440 |
| 12 | 17 | Daniel JUNCADELLA | |
Petronas Syntium AMG Mercedes | DTM Mercedes-Benz AMG C-Coupé | 1:39.437 | 1.976 |