With an undispute lights-to-flag victory in his Audi RS 5 DTM, Mike Rockenfeller crowned a successful DTM race weekend at Brands Hatch in the UK. After 98 action-packed laps and 189.042 kilometres, the 29-year old German crossed the finish line as the buoyant winner. Reigning DTM champion Bruno Spengler from Canada followed in second place with his BMW M3 DTM, 7.641 seconds down.
Spengler’s compatriot Robert Wickens ended up third after a great recovery in Kent county with his DTM Mercedes AMG C-Coupé. Over the weekend, 21,000 spectators attended the first race of the 2013 DTM outside Germany.
A little bit of luck and a strong performance were the basis for Audi driver Mike Rockenfeller’s first race win of the season. In qualifying for the second DTM round of the year, ‘Rocky’ had ended up second, but after the exclusion of erstwhile pole-sitter Martin Tomczyk as his car had been found to be underweight, he had moved up into the best starting grid position. “We have scored 25 points, that is just great. It was a nice race, which I was able to control quite well. My Audi worked perfectly and so were the two pit stops. Of course, going into every season, my goal is to become champion. Let’s see how the year continues,” the winner said after his second career win in the most popular international touring car series.
Third-placed Robert Wickens could hardly believe his luck after his maiden podium finish. Originally, his fellow Mercedes-Benz driver Gary Paffett had crossed the finish line in third place and was already on his way to the prize-giving ceremony. Because Paffett hadn’t sufficiently reduced his speed when yellow flags were out, he was given a post-race five seconds’ time penalty that made him drop back to sixth place. Wickens was promoted and stepped onto the podium instead of Paffett.
With his victory, Mike Rockenfeller moved up into the lead of the drivers’ standings with a new total of 29 points. Spengler follows with 28 points and Augusto Farfus is third with 25 points. The BMW driver from Brazil was in second place for a long time, before he had to park his car due to electrical problems.
1. Mike Rockenfeller Phoenix Audi 1h11m28.719s
2. Bruno Spengler Schnitzer BMW + 7.641s
3. Robert Wickens HWA Mercedes + 24.368s
4. Marco Wittmann MTEK BMW + 24.964s
5. Joey Hand RBM BMW + 26.076s
6. Gary Paffett HWA Mercedes + 25.071s
7. Mattias Ekstrom Abt Audi + 36.523s
8. Christian Vietoris HWA Mercedes + 38.940s
9. Timo Scheider Abt Audi + 39.519s
10. Pascal Wehrlein Mucke Mercedes + 40.290s
11. Miguel Molina Phoenix Audi + 40.853s
