Even with having taken the lead in both the teams and manufacturers’ standings after the first DTM ace of the Hungaroring, disappointment was the main feeling throughout the Audi Sport ranks.
This was despite the fact that the brand took the lead in both the team and manfacturer championship standings, after a significant cumulative points haul.
Mike Rockenfeller was the best-placed of the Ingolstadt drivers in the race itself, charging his way back through the field to narrowly miss out on a podium finish in the dying stages of race one, by just 0.350 seconds from Bruno Spengler.
“If the race had been one lap longer, I’d have still caught him,” said the 2013 champion, who is now third in the standings, just eight points behind Team Rosberg’s Jamie Green.
“The result is obviously disappointing for Audi. Personally, I extracted the maximum. My car was fast and the race was a lot of fun. The rules are the way they are: if you risk pitting early, you know that you’ve bagged a possible safety car. Today, we didn’t do that and were punished for it – while others were rewarded. But that’s racing.”
Rockenfeller’s sentiments were echoed by Head of Audi Motorsport Dieter Gass, considering that all six cars had made it into the top ten in qualifying, with a top five lock out led by René Rast.
“After our strong qualifying, today’s result is extremely disappointing and frustrating,” admitted Gass, stating that the Safety Car period did not help their strategy, following from where Maxime Martin opted to park his damaged BMW on turn three.
“We were just in the process of calling Loïc Duval into the pits, in order to keep at least one car in the group of those having stopped early. You never know if and when there’ll be a safety car. We had the strongest car by far today and are going to leave no stone unturned to be in contention for victory again tomorrow.”
With the performance weights amended from this round onwards, five kilograms of performance weights will be added to all six RS5 DTMs, whilst both BMW and Mercedes lose five kilos respectively, ahead of the action tomorrow morning.