2014 Oschersleben Race

2014 Oschersleben Race
The Oschersleben circuit
Race Information
Date	18 May 2014
No.	171
Event	DTM Oschersleben 2014
Location	Motorsport Arena Oschersleben Oschersleben, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
Format	Championship Race
Lap length	3.696 km (2.297 mi)
Distance	44 laps / 162.624 km (101.050 mi)
Qualifying Result
Pole Sitter	Marco Wittmann
Team	BMW Team RMG
Time	1:20.516
Fastest Lap
Driver	Miguel Molina
Team	Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline
Time	1:23.597 on lap 8
Race Result
First	Second	Third
Christian Vietoris	Mike Rockenfeller	Edoardo Mortara
Winner Team	Original-Teile AMG-Mercedes
Time	1:15:28.785
Race Guide
Previous		Next
2014 Hockenheim Opening Race		2014 Hungaroring Race

The 2014 Oschersleben Race, formally known as the DTM Oschersleben 2014, was the second round of the 2014 DMSB Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters Championship, staged at the Motorsport Arena Oschersleben in Oschersleben, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany on 18 May 2014. The race would see Mercedes claim their first points of the campaign, as Christian Vietoris became the second maiden race winner in as many races.

Marco Wittmann had claimed pole position in qualifying, albeit after Miguel Molina had been excluded for the second race in a row, dumping the Spaniard to the back of the grid. Adrien Tambay hence led the Audi charge from second, while Pascal Wehrlein was the best Mercedes driver in ninth.

Rain began to drift across Oschersleben as the field pulled off to start the formation lap, resulting in Vietoris and Daniel Juncadella diving in for wet tyres as the rest assembled on the grid. They hence lost a lot of time as the rest of the field jumped away, with Wittmann sprinting into an early lead ahead of a fast starting Timo Scheider.

The early stages saw Wittmann enforce his lead, while Molina was storming through the field, quickly rising into the top ten. In contrast, Vietoris and Juncadella would lose time hand over fist at the back of the field, with the rain having eased and failed to wet the circuit completely.

However, the rain would intensify, and after several spins the majority of the field would sweep in for wet tyres. Indeed, only Gary Paffett would gamble on slicks, although that would immediately backfire as Molina took Robert Wickens out, resulting in the Safety Car being scrambled.

Three laps later and the folly of Paffett's choice was made clear, for Wittmann was instantly able to jump the Brit at the restart. He duly slipped down the field during that lap, while Wittmann's charge was ruined when he locked up and slid into the gravel.

Tambay was hence left at the head of the race, with the officials dictating that the pit-window would remain in place, and hence mean that everyone, bar Paffett, would have to stop again. Before that, however, there would be another Safety Car period, this time the result of contact between Timo Glock, Mike Rockenfeller and Mattias Ekström, which also involved Maxime Martin and Paul di Resta.

Paffett was the first driver to serve his mandatory stop, while the rest of the field came in and shuffled the order to leave Jamie Green in charge. However a third safety car was required during the pit-phase, with António Félix da Costa spinning into the gravel after contact, while Wehrlein spun after contact with Molina.

After that those that had not stopped made their stops, resulting in Vietoris hitting the head of the pack in the closing stages, albeit with Rockenfeller hunting him down. Ultimately, however, the younger German pilot would hold on to claim victory ahead of the defending Champion, while Edoardo Mortara secured third ahead of di Resta.

Background

With no driver changes between the rounds, the focus heading to Oschersleben was on the rise of the rookies among the seven champions on the 2014 grid. Wittmann, in his second season, won the opening race at Hockenheim two weeks earlier, ahead of Mattias Ekström (former double champion), Adrien Tambay (another youngster) and defending Champion Mike Rockenfeller. The only team not celebrating after Hockenheim were Mercedes, as none of their cars managed to score a point in the opening race.

BMW Team RMG led the Teams' standings after Wittmann's victory, with Team Phoenix the first of the teams to have had both of their drivers in the points at Hockenheim. All four BMW teams took points in Hockenheim, in stark contrast to Mercedes' teams, without a point between them. They were led by Pascal Wehrlein, in only his second DTM season, who missed out on points at Hockenheim by nearly 20 seconds.

Entries

The full entry list for the 2014 Oschersleben Race is displayed below:

2014 Oschersleben Race Entry List
No.	Name	Entrant	Constructor	Chassis	Engine
1	Mike Rockenfeller	Audi Sport Team Phoenix	Audi	RS5 DTM 14	Audi 4.0l V8
2	Timo Scheider	Audi Sport Team Phoenix	Audi	RS5 DTM 14	Audi 4.0l V8
3	Augusto Farfus	BMW Team RBM	BMW	M4 DTM	P66 4.0l V8
4	Joey Hand	BMW Team RBM	BMW	M4 DTM	P66 4.0l V8
5	Christian Vietoris	Original-Teile Mercedes AMG	Mercedes	AMG C-Coupé DTM	AMG 4.0l V8
6	Paul di Resta	Original-Teile Mercedes AMG	Mercedes	AMG C-Coupé DTM	AMG 4.0l V8
7	Mattias Ekström	Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline	Audi	RS5 DTM 14	Audi 4.0l V8
8	Miguel Molina	Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline	Audi	RS5 DTM 14	Audi 4.0l V8
9	Bruno Spengler	BMW Team Schnitzer	BMW	M4 DTM	P66 4.0l V8
10	Martin Tomczyk	BMW Team Schnitzer	BMW	M4 DTM	P66 4.0l V8
11	Gary Paffett	Thomas Sabo/Free Man's Mercedes AMG	Mercedes	AMG C-Coupé DTM	AMG 4.0l V8
12	Robert Wickens	Thomas Sabo/Free Man's Mercedes AMG	Mercedes	AMG C-Coupé DTM	AMG 4.0l V8
15	Edoardo Mortara	Audi Sport Team Abt	Audi	RS5 DTM 14	Audi 4.0l V8
16	Adrien Tambay	Audi Sport Team Abt	Audi	RS5 DTM 14	Audi 4.0l V8
17	Timo Glock	BMW Team MTEK	BMW	M4 DTM	P66 4.0l V8
18	António Félix da Costa	BMW Team MTEK	BMW	M4 DTM	P66 4.0l V8
19	Daniel Juncadella	Petronas Mercedes AMG	Mercedes	Mercedes C63 DTM	AMG 4.0l V8
20	Vitaly Petrov	Petronas Mercedes AMG	Mercedes	Mercedes C63 DTM	AMG 4.0l V8
21	Jamie Green	Audi Sport Team Rosberg	Audi	RS5 DTM 14	Audi 4.0l V8
22	Nico Müller	Audi Sport Team Rosberg	Audi	RS5 DTM 14	Audi 4.0l V8
23	Marco Wittmann	BMW Team RMG	BMW	M4 DTM	P66 4.0l V8
24	Maxime Martin	BMW Team RMG	BMW	M4 DTM	P66 4.0l V8
25	Pascal Wehrlein	gooix Mercedes AMG	Mercedes	AMG C-Coupé DTM	AMG 4.0l V8
Source:

Qualifying

A dry qualifying session was held on the Saturday before the race, and was split into three sessions. Q1 lasted 13 minutes and saw the bottom five drivers eliminated, before the 11 minute Q2 session saw the removal of the next lowest ten. Q3 was then a pole position shootout for 9 minutes, featuring the eight fastest drivers from Q2.

Q1

Adrien Tambay was the man on the move in Q1, setting an early time that remained the fastest of the first session, as 22 of the 23 cars set times within two seconds of each other. It was not, however, a happy atmosphere at Mercedes, however, as four of their cars, including both Mücke Motorsport entries, as well as Paul di Resta and Robert Wickens were dumped out of qualifying]]. Joining that quartet was Timo Glock, who struggled to set his car up for qualifying, and struggled to match the pace of stable mate António Félix da Costa.

Q2

Tambay saw his name atop the timesheets in Q2 as well, setting the fastest time of the weekend at 1:20.011, three tenths quicker than anyone else. He was joined by three more Audis in the Team Phoenix pair, Miguel Molina, and team mate Edoardo Mortara, as well as three  BMWs, led by Marco Wittmann. Da Costa impressed with the third fastest time of the session, with Bruno Spengler taking the final Q3 spot. Augusto Farfus and Pascal Wehrlein therefore missed out on Q3 by little more than tenth of a second.

Q3

Tambay's Q2 time was then edged out by Molina in the final session, as he set a time of 1:20.007 to take provisional pole, joined by Wittmann on the front row. Tambay just couldn't find his Q2 pace, losing over half a second to his earlier time, although he missed out on Wittmann's second place by just 0.003s of a second. Da Costa, meanwhile, secured fourth on the grid for the second race running, beating three the three DTM Champions still in the session: Timo Scheider, Mike Rockenfeller and Spengler. Mortara rounded out the top eight, as Molina looked to have taken his third DTM pole.

Yet, it was not to be for the Spaniard as, for the second race running, he was excluded from the qualifying result for a technical infringement, this time on his rear-wing. The rear-wing end plates were found to be longer than the regulations allowed (around 1.5mm longer) on Molina's Audi RS5 DTM, which saw him pushed to the back of the grid.

Post-Qualifying

The results of qualifying for the race are shown below.

2014 Oschersleben Race Qualifying Result
Pos.	No.	Name	Team		Q1			Q2			Q3		Grid
					Pos.	Time		Pos.	Time		Pos.	Time
1st	23	Marco Wittmann	BMW Team RMG		6th	1:20.866		2nd	1:20.346		1st	1:20.516	1
2nd	16	Adrien Tambay	Audi Team Abt		1st	1:20.508		1st	1:20.011		2nd	1:20.519	2
3rd	18	António Félix da Costa	BMW Team MTEK		11th	1:21.116		3rd	1:20.372		3rd	1:20.582	3
4th	2	Timo Scheider	Audi Team Phoenix		8th	1:20.917		7th	1:20.528		4th	1:20.668	4
5th	1	Mike Rockenfeller	Audi Team Phoenix		5th	1:20.855		5th	1:20.471		5th	1:20.676	5
6th	9	Bruno Spengler	BMW Team Schnitzer		4th	1:20.843		4th	1:20.416		6th	1:20.703	6
7th	15	Edoardo Mortara	Audi Team Abt		7th	1:20.875		6th	1:20.509		7th	1:21.113	7
8th	3	Augusto Farfus	BMW Team RBM		13th	1:21.296		8th	1:20.663				8
9th	25	Pascal Wehrlein	gooix Mercedes AMG		16th	1:21.415		9th	1:20.668				9
10th	21	Jamie Green	Audi Team Rosberg		2nd	1:20.786		10th	1:20.767				10
11th	7	Mattias Ekström	Audi Team Abt Sportsline		3rd	1:20.839		11th	1:20.788				11
12th	10	Martin Tomczyk	BMW Team Schnitzer		14th	1:21.362		12th	1:20.801				12
13th	24	Maxime Martin	BMW Team RMG		10th	1:21.026		13th	1:20.904				13
14th	22	Nico Müller	Audi Team Rosberg		9th	1:21.019		14th	1:20.967				14
15th	4	Joey Hand	BMW Team RBM		15th	1:21.411		15th	1:20.973				15
16th	5	Christian Vietoris	OT Mercedes AMG		12th	1:21.153		16th	1:21.082				16
17th	11	Gary Paffett	TS/FM Mercedes AMG		17th	1:21.420		17th	1:21.322				17
18th	17	Timo Glock	BMW Team MTEK		18th	1:21.439							18
19th	12	Robert Wickens	TS/FM Mercedes AMG		19th	1:21.595							19
20th	6	Paul di Resta	OT Mercedes AMG		20th	1:21.795							20
21st	19	Daniel Juncadella	Petronas Mercedes AMG		21st	1:21.915							21
22nd	20	Vitaly Petrov	Petronas Mercedes AMG		22nd	1:22.132							22
EXC*	8	Miguel Molina	Audi Team Abt Sportsline		1:20.418			1:20.293			1:20.007		23
Source:

• Bold indicates the fastest driver's time in each session.
• * Molina excluded from the final result after Q3.

Grid

	Pos.	Pos.
	Driver	Driver
	______________
Row 1	1	______________
	Marco Wittmann	2
	______________	Adrien Tambay
Row 2	3	______________
	António Félix da Costa	4
	______________	Timo Scheider
Row 3	5	______________
	Mike Rockenfeller	6
	______________	Bruno Spengler
Row 4	7	______________
	Edoardo Mortara	8
	______________	Augusto Farfus
Row 5	9	______________
	Pascal Wehrlein	10
	______________	Jamie Green
Row 6	11	______________
	Mattias Ekström	12
	______________	Martin Tomczyk
Row 7	13	______________
	Maxime Martin	14
	______________	Nico Müller
Row 8	15	______________
	Joey Hand	16
	______________	Christian Vietoris
Row 9	17	______________
	Gary Paffett	18
	______________	Timo Glock
Row 10	19	______________
	Robert Wickens	20
	______________	Paul di Resta
Row 11	21	______________
	Daniel Juncadella	22
	______________	Vitaly Petrov
Row 12	23	______________
	Miguel Molina	24
	______________

Race

There were no modifications to the starting order after Molina's penalty had been applied, meaning Marco Wittmann and Adrien Tambay shared the front row for the second race in succession. The morning before the race had seen a series of showers dampen the track, although the amount of water on the track was negligible. That was until the start of the formation lap, when a sharp shower caused Christian Vietoris and Daniel Juncadella to forfeit their starting positions to swap for wet tyres.

Report

Wittmann pulled away smartly to lead into the tight first corner, as Tambay was jumped by Timo Scheider off the line. António Félix da Costa was another to make a good start, but found himself on the outside of the first corner, meaning, although he was briefly second, da Costa stayed fourth. Further down, Miguel Molina was on a mission, pushing his way through the field from the very back of the grid, while Juncadella and Vietoris had to wait at the end of the pitlane until the field had cleared turn three.

Gary Paffett and Jamie Green were battling over ninth for a few laps, before Paffett pulled Green past Augusto Farfus for eighth. Edoardo Mortara was put into a spin by Pascal Wehrlein, the latter receiving a five second penalty for putting Mortara to the back of the field. Molina was on a mission, entering the top ten by lap five, and setting the fastest lap on lap eight, while, at the back, Vietoris and Juncadella were losing time hand over fist to the rest of the field.

Back at the front, da Costa slid past Scheider for third, Tambay having got past while Mortara was spun round, while Paffett set his sights on sixth. That was until Paffett sent himself into a spin, dropping him down to twelfth, while di Resta did likewise, although he was on his own at the time. Their spins prompted an mass exodus into the pits for wet tyres, although two drivers soldiered on at the front. Da Costa stayed out for another two laps, while Paffett remained on track, as the safety car emerged for the first time in 2014.

Robert Wickens was the cause, having been hit by Molina as the Spaniard exited the pits, which damaged his front suspension and aero, meaning he could not get around turn four. Paffett continued on, however, remaining on track as the safety car pulled in three laps after Wickens' incident. The Brit was immediately passed by Wittmann into the first corner, and continued to lose places as the lap progressed. Wittmann, however, slid wide when trying to out brake Paffett into the first corner, avoiding getting stuck in the gravel, but tumbled down the order as he rejoined.

That left Tambay in the lead of the race from Scheider as they came to the start/finish line, while Paffett trundled into the pits as the pitwindow opened on lap 17.

His stop came after a second safety car, caused by two cars. The first collision saw Timo Glock try an ambitious move to take Mattias Ekström and Rockenfeller, which ended with the Deutsche Post liveried BMW hitting the Audi of Rockenfeller. Glock then slid into the gravel and into retirement, as Rocky continued and lost several places, while also struggling with a sudden loss of temperature in his tyres, having had to run across the grass. That caused him to slide into the back of Maxime Martin in the braking zone into the following turn, which, in turn, caused the Belgian to pit Paul di Resta into a gravel trap, although the Scotsman escaped and continued.

Juncadella's race was ended after a spin, which left Vitaly Petrov with no where to go, hitting the front of the Spaniard's car after the race restarted again. Juncadella made it back to the pits to retire, although the safety car was looming after another incident a few laps later. Jamie Green, meanwhile, made his way past to take the lead, and had built an eleven second lead until several incidents in the space of a lap brought the safety car back out onto the circuit.

The first saw da Costa spin into the gravel, having made contact with Scheider in their battle for third, both continuing while Molina was forced off the circuit by di Resta in their battle, having stopped for their mandatory pitstop earlier. Yet, it was Pascal Wehrlein who ultimately caused it, having slid wide into turn one and beached himself in the gravel. The pit window was extended, and Green's lead obliterated.

Vietoris was the man on the move after the restart, as he climbed from fourteenth to the lead of the race with just fifteen minutes to go, the numerous safety car periods meaning the race distance could not be completed in the 1:15:00 time window a DTM race was given. He gained mainly through others stopping for their compulsory stop, a fact which had not been kind to Green, as he fell to ninth. Vietoris, meanwhile, was being hunted down by Rockenfeller as the race came to a close.

But, fate was on the young German's side, as he claimed his maiden DTM victory by six tenths of a second from Rocky, handing Mercedes a surprise victory despite their horrible start to the season. Edoardo Mortara pushed hard late on to establish himself in third, while di Resta completed the shock result for Mercedes by taking fourth, despite his eventful day. For Green, however, his day was ultimately ruined by contact and a spin, which sent him into the barrier before the end of the race. Wittmann, meanwhile, crossed the line dead last, having come in for a late stop which caught out his team, meaning he lost a lap.

Results

The final classification of the 2014 Oschersleben Race is displayed below:

2014 Oschersleben Race Result
Pos.	No.	Name	Team	Laps	Time	Strat.	Fastest lap	Pts.
1st	5	Christian Vietoris	OT Mercedes AMG	44	1:15:28.785	-	1:32.892	25
2nd	1	Mike Rockenfeller	Audi Team Phoenix	44	+0.674s	-	1:25.615	18
3rd	15	Edoardo Mortara	Audi Team Abt	44	+7.795s	-	1:26.521	15
4th	6	Paul di Resta	OT Mercedes AMG	44	+8.906s	-	1:26.576	12
5th	3	Augusto Farfus	BMW Team RBM	44	+9.326s	-	1:25.870	10
6th	8	Miguel Molina	Audi Team Abt Sportsline	44	+13.051s	-	1:23.597	8
7th	2	Timo Scheider	Audi Team Phoenix	44	+20.503s	-	1:24.645	6
8th	11	Gary Paffett	TS/FM Mercedes AMG	44	+20.597s	-	1:24.438	4
9th	10	Martin Tomczyk	BMW Team Schnitzer	44	+23.079s	-	1:24.719	2
10th	16	Adrien Tambay	Audi Team Abt	44	+24.340s	-	1:24.427	1
11th	18	António Félix da Costa	BMW Team MTEK	44	+24.620s	-	1:24.061
12th	9	Bruno Spengler	BMW Team Schnitzer	44	+26.892s	-	1:24.365
13th	7	Mattias Ekström	Audi Team Abt Sportsline	44	+27.201s	-	1:25.719
14	24	Maxime Martin	BMW Team RMG	44	+31.032s	-	1:25.524
15th	4	Joey Hand	BMW Team RBM	44	+39.802s	-	1:23.976
16	22	Nico Müller	Audi Team Rosberg	44	+44.324s	-	1:26.601
17th	20	Vitaly Petrov	Petronas Mercedes AMG	44	+55.493s	-	1:27.076
18th	21	Jamie Green	Audi Team Rosberg	43	+1 Lap	-	1:24.016
19th	23	Marco Wittmann	BMW Team RMG	43	+1 Lap	-	1:23.613
Ret	25	Pascal Wehrlein	gooix Mercedes AMG	26	Accident	-	1:26.135
Ret	19	Daniel Juncadella	Petronas Mercedes AMG	22	Damage	-	1:35.445
Ret	17	Timo Glock	BMW Team MTEK	13	Accident	-	1:25.950
Ret	12	Robert Wickens	TS/FM Mercedes AMG	9	Accident	-	1:23.612
Source:

• Bold indicates a driver started from pole.
• Italics indicate that a driver set fastest lap.

Milestones

• First race victory for Christian Vietoris.

Standings

Victory meant that Christian Vietoris leapt up to second in the Championship, having bettered Marco Wittmann's nineteenth place finish with fifteenth at Hockenheim. Yet, it was Mike Rockenfeller lading the way in the Championship, with his tally of 30 seeing him hold a five point margin. Mattias Ekström was next, with Adrien Tambay completing the top five. Four drivers left Oschersleben tied on eight points, a group led by Bruno Spengler.

Audi Team Phoenix were now at the summit of the Teams' Championship, their advantage coming through the eight points Timo Scheider had secured (along with Rockys tally). Audi Team Abt and Audi Team Abt Sportsline swapped places (although are essentially the same team), although Vietoris' victory meant that the first of the Original Teile Mercedes AMG entries was now in second, after Paul di Resta secured fourth. Gary Paffett's four points also meant that the second HWA outfit was ninth and last of the teams that had scored.

Audi, meanwhile, secured the lead in the Manufacturers Championship, having taken four of the six podium positions on offer in 2014. Mercedes were also off the mark, but were now 20 points behind BMW.

2014 Drivers' Championship Pos. Name Pts. +/- 1st Mike Rockenfeller 30 ▲3 2nd Christian Vietoris 25 ▲9 3rd Marco Wittmann 25 ▼2 4th Mattias Ekström 18 ▼2 5th Adrien Tambay 16 ▼2 6th Edoardo Mortara 15 ▲5 7th Augusto Farfus 14 ▲1 8th Paul di Resta 12 ▲3 9th Timo Glock 10 ▼4 10th Bruno Spengler 8 ▼4 11th Miguel Molina 8 ▲1 12th Timo Scheider 8 ▼3 13th Martin Tomczyk 8 ▼6 14th Gary Paffett 4 ▲1 15th Joey Hand 1 ▼5

2014 Teams' Championship Pos. Name Pts. +/- 1st Audi Team Phoenix 38 ▲3 2nd OT Mercedes AMG 37 ▲6 3rd Audi Team Abt 31 ◄0 4th Audi Team Abt Sportsline 26 ▼2 5th BMW Team RMG 25 ▼4 6th BMW Team Schnitzer 16 ◄0 7th BMW Team RBM 15 ◄0 8th BMW Team MTEK 10 ▼3 9th TS/FM Mercedes AMG 4 ▲1 2014 Manufacturers' Championship Pos. Name Pts. +/- 1st Audi 95 ▲1 2nd BMW 66 ▼1 3rd Mercedes 41 ◄0

Only point scoring drivers and teams are shown.

References

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