The Red Bull Ring at Spielberg, Austria, will be the venue of the next two DTM races during the first weekend in August. Audi is traveling to Styria with a one-two lead in the drivers’ standings and as the leading manufacturer.
The ninth race of the season on Saturday will mark the end of the first half of the 2015 DTM in which Audi has been the strongest brand so far. Four victories have been scored by the Audi RS 5 DTM, as well as four pole positions and four fastest race laps. Plus, the lead of the manufacturers’ championship with a 48-point advantage and positions one, two and four in the drivers’ championship with Jamie Green (Hoffmann Group Audi RS 5 DTM/81 points), Mattias Ekström (Red Bull Audi RS 5 DTM/76 points) and Edoardo Mortara (Castrol EDGE Audi RS 5 DTM/58 points).
Due to the extremely competitive DTM field the ‘success-induced’ performance weight has a major influence on the results – especially in qualifying. Last year, the top six on the grid at Spielberg were separated by only 0.091 seconds. The heaviest car in the field is the one of Mattias Ekström who, with fourth place at the Norisring and seventh place at Zandvoort, managed to approach Jamie Green with a five-point margin.
Jamie Green is traveling to Spielberg with unfinished business as well. Last year, he was battling in the group of the front runners but then received a drive-through penalty for pitting one lap too late. Edoardo Mortara is the only one of the current eight Audi drivers to have finished on podium at Spielberg – on the top step. In 2012, the Italian celebrated his first DTM victory at the Red Bull Ring. Trailing the leader of the standings with a 23-point deficit, he continues to expect having chances of winning the title.
