2015 Nürburgring Race 1

2015 Nürburgring Race 1
The short circuit at the Nürburgring
Race Information
Date	26 September 2015
No.	194
Event	DTM Nürburg 2015
Location	Nürburgring Nürburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
Format	40 min + 1 Lap
Lap length	3.629 km (2.255 mi)
Distance	25 laps / 90.725 km (56.374 mi)
Qualifying Result
Pole Sitter	Lucas Auer
Team	ART Grand Prix Mercedes
Time	1:21.915
Fastest Lap
Driver	Maxime Martin
Team	BMW Team RMG
Time	1:23.502 on lap 7
Race Result
First	Second	Third
Maxime Martin	Edoardo Mortara	Pascal Wehrlein
Winner Team	BMW Team RMG
Time	48:17.036
Race Guide
Previous		Next
2015 Oschersleben Race 2		2015 Nürburgring Race 2

The 2015 Nürburgring Race 1, otherwise known as the DTM Nürburg 2015 Race 1 was the penultimate round of the 2015 DMSB Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters Championship, held at the Nürburgring in Nürburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany on 26 September 2015. The race would see Maxime Martin sweep to his second DTM victory, as the younger generation of drivers occupied the front of the field.

Indeed, Mercedes youth Lucas Auer had started the ball rolling, having swept to his maiden DTM pole position, edging out Martin by 0.084s. Pascal Wehrlein was next up ahead of veteran campaigner Bruno Spengler, while Edoardo Mortara headed the Audi challenge from fifth.

The start saw Martin leap away quickly to challenge Auer for the lead, although both would be passed by Wehrlein on the outside of the track. It therefore became a battle on the brakes between the trio, with Martin winning the truel and clattering into Wehrlein to dump the #94 Mercedes to fourth, while Auer locked up and tumbled to seventh.

Moments later and the race would be halted, after Jamie Green had been spun around by Tom Blomqvist, before being collected by Miguel Molina and Timo Scheider. Those series of collisions would leave a lot of Audi RS5 DTM scattered across the circuit, and duly cause the race to be stopped completely.

The red flag period would see the field ordered based on how it had finished the first complete sector, meaning Martin would head the grid. After fifteen minutes the race would resume behind the Safety Car with Martin leading Spengler and Mortara, while Wehrlein had Maximilian Götz to deal with.

The restart itself was fairly clean, with Martin blasting clear, while Spengler and Mortara held station in second and third. Behind, Wehrlein would have to shake off an aggressive Götz before going on the offensive himself, although he would have to wait for Mortara to attack Spengler to do so.

Indeed, Mortara would wait until the final quarter of the race to attack Spengler, and duly sent his #48 Audi skating inside the #7 BMW at the chicane. Spengler turned in to block the Italian causing the pair to collide, with the #7 BMW skating wide to allow Mortara and Wehrlein through.

Out front, meanwhile, Martin would cruise through to the chequered flag to claim victory, while Mortara put up a ferocious defence to keep Wehrlein at bay. Indeed, their fight was aided by the fact that Spengler's pace collapsed, with the damage to his splitter ultimately forcing the Canadian racer to stop. Paffett duly finished fourth ahead of Götz and Auer, while Marco Wittmann, Robert Wickens, António Félix da Costa and Mattias Ekström completed the scorers.

Background

Tom Blomqvist had won his first race last time out in Oschersleben, although that result did little to affect the title standings. That said, the result over the weekend did have an effect on the table, as Wehrlein took the lead of the Championship ahead of Mattias Ekström, who failed to score at all. The top six of the Championship were separated by 42 points with 100 points on offer, and all three brands were represented. Bruno Spengler in fifth and Marco Wittmann in sixth made sure that BMW had a slim hope of the glory, although it was a dominant display by the Bavarians last time out that had brightened their season.

Indeed, six podium finishes and twelve point scorers over the two races in Oschersleben had launched BMW into the lead of the Brands' Championship, leaping well ahead of Audi and Mercedes. That said, it was a Mercedes backed team that led the Teams' Championship, gooix/Original-Teile Mercedes-AMG leading the charge. They held a healthy, but not unbeatable, lead of 36 points over BMW Team MTEK, who were suddenly in with a shout of the Teams' title after climbing four places in the table after the Saxon weekend.

Entry List

The full entry list for the 2015 Nürburgring Race 1 is displayed below:

2015 Nürburgring Race 1 Entry List
No.	Name	Entrant	Constructor	Chassis	Engine	Weight
1	Marco Wittmann	BMW Team RMG	BMW	M4 DTM	P66 4.0l V8	1,117.5 kg
2	Gary Paffett	Euronics/BWT Mercedes-AMG	Mercedes-AMG	C63 DTM	AMG 4.0l V8	1,127.5 kg
3	Paul di Resta	Silberpfeil Energy Mercedes-AMG	Mercedes-AMG	C63 DTM	AMG 4.0l V8	1,120 kg
5	Mattias Ekström	Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline	Audi	RS5 DTM 15	Audi 4.0l V8	1,127.5 kg
6	Robert Wickens	Silberpfeil Energy Mercedes-AMG	Mercedes-AMG	C63 DTM	AMG 4.0l V8	1,122.5 kg
7	Bruno Spengler	BMW Team MTEK	BMW	M4 DTM	P66 4.0l V8	1,115 kg
8	Christian Vietoris	gooix/Original-Teile Mercedes-AMG	Mercedes-AMG	C63 DTM	AMG 4.0l V8	1,122.5 kg
10	Timo Scheider	Audi Sport Team Phoenix	Audi	RS5 DTM 15	Audi 4.0l V8	1,115 kg
12	Daniel Juncadella	Petronas Mercedes-AMG	Mercedes-AMG	C63 DTM	AMG 4.0l V8	1,125 kg
13	António Félix da Costa	BMW Team Schnitzer	BMW	M4 DTM	P66 4.0l V8	1,117.5 kg
16	Timo Glock	BMW Team MTEK	BMW	M4 DTM	P66 4.0l V8	1,115 kg
17	Miguel Molina	Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline	Audi	RS5 DTM 15	Audi 4.0l V8	1,115 kg
18	Augusto Farfus	BMW Team RBM	BMW	M4 DTM	P66 4.0l V8	1,117.5 kg
22	Lucas Auer	Euronics/BWT Mercedes-AMG	Mercedes-AMG	C63 DTM	AMG 4.0l V8	1,120 kg
27	Adrien Tambay	Audi Sport Team Abt	Audi	RS5 DTM 15	Audi 4.0l V8	1,112.5 kg
31	Tom Blomqvist	BMW Team RBM	BMW	M4 DTM	P66 4.0l V8	1,115 kg
36	Maxime Martin	BMW Team RMG	BMW	M4 DTM	P66 4.0l V8	1,112.5 kg
48	Edoardo Mortara	Audi Sport Team Abt	Audi	RS5 DTM 15	Audi 4.0l V8	1,127.5 kg
51	Nico Müller	Audi Sport Team Rosberg	Audi	RS5 DTM 15	Audi 4.0l V8	1,120 kg
53	Jamie Green	Audi Sport Team Rosberg	Audi	RS5 DTM 15	Audi 4.0l V8	1,125 kg
77	Martin Tomczyk	BMW Team Schnitzer	BMW	M4 DTM	P66 4.0l V8	1,112.5 kg
84	Maximilian Götz	Petronas Mercedes-AMG	Mercedes-AMG	C63 DTM	AMG 4.0l V8	1,117.5 kg
94	Pascal Wehrlein	gooix/Original-Teile Mercedes-AMG	Mercedes-AMG	C63 DTM	AMG 4.0l V8	1,130 kg
99	Mike Rockenfeller	Audi Sport Team Phoenix	Audi	RS5 DTM 15	Audi 4.0l V8	1,127.5 kg
Source:

Qualifying

Qualifying would be staged late in the morning ahead of the race, with all twenty-four drivers taking to the circuit for a twenty minute session. Each driver would then be allowed to complete as many laps as they liked, with the final order based on each driver's time.

Report

A cold Saturday morning resulted in a shock qualifying result on the Nürburgring short circuit, as Austrian rookie Lucas Auer set the fastest lap of the session in the dying moments to take pole. The sun broke through the low lying cloud as qualifying for the first race came to an end, seeing the early times from the session beaten by almost a second. Joining Auer on the front row would be Maxime Martin, who claimed his best starting position of the season, while Championship leader Pascal Wehrlein claimed third.

Another stunning performance came from another rookie in Maximilian Götz, who claimed his best quali result by taking sixth, as the DTM proved to be its usual competitive self. Just two tenths covered the top ten, which saw four Mercedes, four Audis and two BMWs filled the first five rows, with the top half completed a further pair of BMWs. Further reinforcing the narrow margins of the DTM qualifying session was the fact that seven tenths separated the 21 drivers who managed to complete a lap.

The session was hit by a ten minute pause when Paul di Resta and Adrien Tambay crashed out within a few moments of each other. Neither managed to set a time before their demise, with di Resta suffering heavy rear damage, and Tambay seeming to lose his brakes and slam straight into the barrier to bring out a red flag. Martin Tomczyk also failed to set a time after a problem for his BMW, while Championship contender Mattias Ekström would have to start for seventeenth, having been unable to find the perfect balance for his Audi RS5 DTM.

Post Qualifying

The final qualifying result for the 2015 Nürburgring Race 1 are outlined below:

2015 Nürburgring Race 1 Qualifying Result
Pos.	No.	Name	Team	Time	Gap	Ave. Speed	Grid
1st	22	Lucas Auer	ART Grand Prix Mercedes	1:21.915	—	159.487 km/h	1
2nd	36	Maxime Martin	BMW Team RMG	1:21.999	+0.084s	159.323 km/h	2
3rd	94	Pascal Wehrlein	gooix/OT Mercedes-AMG	1:22.030	+0.115s	159.263 km/h	3
4th	7	Bruno Spengler	BMW Team MTEK	1:22.032	+0.117s	159.259 km/h	4
5th	48	Edoardo Mortara	Audi Team Abt	1:22.068	+0.153s	159.189 km/h	5
6th	84	Maximilian Götz	Petronas Mercedes-AMG	1:22.072	+0.157s	159.182 km/h	6
7th	53	Jamie Green	Audi Team Rosberg	1:22.073	+0.158s	159.180 km/h	7
8th	99	Mike Rockenfeller	Audi Team Phoenix	1:22.089	+0.174s	159.149 km/h	8
9th	12	Daniel Juncadella	Petronas Mercedes-AMG	1:22.120	+0.205s	159.089 km/h	9
10th	17	Miguel Molina	Audi Team Abt Sportsline	1:22.121	+0.206s	159.087 km/h	10
11th	31	Tom Blomqvist	BMW Team RBM	1:22.151	+0.236s	159.029 km/h	11
12th	1	Marco Wittmann	BMW Team RMG	1:22.156	+0.241s	159.019 km/h	12
13th	6	Robert Wickens	Silberpfeil Mercedes-AMG	1:22.223	+0.308s	158.889 km/h	13
14th	2	Gary Paffett	ART Grand Prix Mercedes	1:22.242	+0.327s	158.853 km/h	14
15th	51	Nico Müller	Audi Team Rosberg	1:22.338	+0.423s	158.667 km/h	15
16th	18	Augusto Farfus	BMW Team RBM	1:22.365	+0.450s	158.615 km/h	16
17th	5	Mattias Ekström	Audi Team Abt Sportsline	1:22.372	+0.457s	158.602 km/h	17
18th	17	Timo Glock	BMW Team MTEK	1:22.381	+0.466s	158.585 km/h	18
19th	10	Timo Scheider	Audi Team Phoenix	1:22.536	+0.621s	158.287 km/h	19
20th	13	António Félix da Costa	BMW Team Schnitzer	1:22.574	+0.659s	158.214 km/h	20
21st	8	Christian Vietoris	gooix/OT Mercedes-AMG	1:22.712	+0.797s	157.950 km/h	21
NC	77	Martin Tomczyk	BMW Team Schnitzer				22
NC	3	Paul di Resta	Silberpfeil Mercedes-AMG				23
NC	27	Adrien Tambay	Audi Team Abt				24
Source:

• Bold indicates a driver's best/qualifying time.

Grid

The starting grid for the first race of the 2015 Nürburgring Race 1 meeting is outlined below:

		27	Adrien Tambay	—			8	Christian Vietoris	1:22.712			10	Timo Scheider	1:22.536			5	Mattias Ekström	1:22.372			51	Nico Müller	1:22.338			6	Robert Wickens	1:22.223			31	Tom Blomqvist	1:22.151			12	Daniel Juncadella	1:22.120			53	Jamie Green	1:22.073			48	Edoardo Mortara	1:22.068			94	Pascal Wehrlein	1:22.030			22	Lucas Auer	1:21.915
	77	Martin Tomczyk		—		3	Gary Paffett		—		13	António Félix da Costa		1:22.574		17	Timo Glock		1:22.381		18	Augusto Farfus		1:22.365		2	Gary Paffett		1:22.242		1	Marco Wittmann		1:22.156		17	Miguel Molina		1:22.121		99	Mike Rockenfeller		1:22.089		84	Maximilian Götz		1:22.072		7	Bruno Spengler		1:22.032		36	Maxime Martin		1:21.999

Race

A dry and increasingly warm Saturday afternoon greeted the field, with a maiden pole sitter, and several of the title contenders out of position. With Lucas Auer expected to try and allow Pascal Wehrlein to take the lead off the start, leaving Mattias Ekström and his fellow title combatants to pick their way through the field to prevent the young German from taking a huge step to the title.

Report

Maxime Martin pulled away smartly to get alongside Auer into the first corner, as Wehrlein swept past the pair of them to take the lead. Unfortunately for the young German, Martin was better on the brakes and so was able to take the inside line with Wehrlein clattering into the side of him. Martin them managed to force Wehrlein wide, allowing Bruno Spengler and Edoardo Mortara to slip past, after Lucas Auer locked up and slipped down to seventh. But, the drama was to come just two corners later.

Space was at a premium through the Mercedes-Benz Arena and so there was no surprise when two cars came together. Regrettably, the incident saw Tom Blomqvist put Jamie Green into a spin in the middle of the field, meaning only quick reactions would prevent a larger accident. Inevitably, Miguel Molina was left unsighted, and slammed into the front of the spinning Audi RS5 DTM, taking the front splitter off the orange machine. Green's car was spat into the side of Timo Scheider as he tried to avoid the accident, further compounding the damage to the Brit's car. Molina retired with Green's front splitter embedded in the front of his car, with a red flag thrown to clear the debris.

The suddenly scattered field came back together through turn four, with Gary Paffett attempting an ill timed lunge to gain some vital places, but only succeeded in collecting Blomqvist. That bumped the rookie into the back of Daniel Juncadella, who spun to the back of the field but was able to continue otherwise unharmed. As a result, Green, Molina and ultimately Scheider were out, while an irate Wehrlein moaned that Martin had caused their collision.

The field restarted behind the safety car fifteen minutes later, with Martin's best efforts to blast away defeated by the field, with every one equal at the restart. Wehrlein came under pressure from Maximilian Götz in the opening minutes before managing to shake off his team mate, as Paffett and Ekström (up to eleventh at the restart) began their climbs through the field. Blomqvist, meanwhile, went out as DRS became active, retiring after repeated contact at the start.

Ekström's climb was halted by António Félix da Costa on lap ten, when the Portuguese driver managed to force his way past the Swede at the chicane for tenth. With fifteen minutes to go, the pressure was mounting on Spengler in second after Martin bolted, leaving the Canadian to fend off most of the top ten. Mortara then tried a dive down the inside of the hairpin, managing to get alongside the BMW at the apex, as Spengler turned in. Contact between them forced both wide, allowing Wehrlein to pass Spengler too, with the Canadian still under pressure, and now with aero damage too.

Spengler's problems meant Götz was climbing all over the back of him, but a canny move by Spengler meant he held on to fourth in his wounded BMW. That allowed Mike Rockenfeller to try a move into the chicane for fifth, but his attempts to avoid contact meant he lost out to Auer, Paffett and Marco Wittmann and was then under attack from Robert Wickens. The group remained glued together behind Spengler with positions swapping among them at every turn.

The next few minutes saw a Spengler train form, with every one from fourth to seventeenth in one long line behind the limping #7 BMW. Suddenly Spengler's limp became terminal as he suffered a puncture as Götz finally forced his way past in the final corner, opening the flood gates for the rest of the field. The only man to lose out in the rush to get past the tumbling Canadian was his compatriot Wickens, who was forced to try to get round the outside of the black #7 BMW at the first hairpin, only to be run wide when the turning circle of the BMW suddenly grew.

Paffett spent the rest of the race finding his way past Götz and Auer, who both took their best finishes of the season in fifth and sixth respectively. Paffett and co had lost so much time behind Spengler that they could not catch Wehrlein and Mortara, who had an exciting scrap that ended in the Italian's favour. But, there was no troubling Martin, who drove a clean race to take his second career victory. The race ended with Ekström in tenth, but he slipped to third behind Mortara, although both slipped to 27 points behind the youngster with three races to go.

Result

The final classification of the 2015 Nürburgring Race 1 is displayed below:

2015 Nürburgring Race 1 Result
Pos.	No.	Name	Team	Laps	Race Time	Fastest lap	Pts.
1st	36	Maxime Martin	BMW Team RMG	25	48:17.036	1:23.502	25
2nd	48	Edoardo Mortara	Audi Team Abt	25	+2.543s	1:23.930	18
3rd	94	Pascal Wehrlein	gooix/OT Mercedes-AMG	25	+2.955s	1:23.805	15
4th	2	Gary Paffett	ART Grand Prix Mercedes	25	+14.227s	1:24.031	12
5th	84	Maximilian Götz	Petronas Mercedes-AMG	25	+15.293s	1:23.659	10
6th	22	Lucas Auer	ART Grand Prix Mercedes	25	+16.750s	1:23.857	8
7th	1	Marco Wittmann	BMW Team RMG	25	+17.349s	1:24.077	6
8th	6	Robert Wickens	Silberpfeil Mercedes-AMG	25	+20.620s	1:23.973	4
9th	13	António Félix da Costa	BMW Team Schnitzer	25	+22.189s	1:24.122	2
10th	5	Mattias Ekström	Audi Team Abt Sportsline	25	+23.857s	1:24.209	1
11th	99	Mike Rockenfeller	Audi Team Phoenix	25	+24.398s	1:23.858
12th	3	Paul di Resta	Silberpfeil Mercedes-AMG	25	+25.032s	1:24.056
13th	16	Timo Glock	BMW Team MTEK	25	+25.383s	1:24.241
14th	27	Adrien Tambay	Audi Team Abt	25	+25.756s	1:23.875
15th	8	Christian Vietoris	gooix/OT Mercedes-AMG	25	+26.413s	1:24.007
16th	51	Nico Müller	Audi Team Rosberg	25	+27.142s	1:24.080
17th	12	Daniel Juncadella	Petronas Mercedes-AMG	25	+27.724s	1:24.032
18th	18	Augusto Farfus	BMW Team RBM	25	+1:00.378	1:23.566
19th*	7	Bruno Spengler	BMW Team MTEK	18	Puncture	1:24.107
Ret	10	Timo Scheider	Audi Team Phoenix	11	Damage	1:25.118
Ret	31	Tom Blomqvist	BMW Team RBM	9	Retired	1:25.713
Ret	53	Jamie Green	Audi Team Rosberg	0	Accident	—
Ret	17	Miguel Molina	Audi Team Abt Sportsline	0	Accident	—
DNS†	77	Martin Tomczyk	BMW Team Schnitzer
Source:

• Bold indicates a driver started from pole.
• Italics indicate that a driver set fastest lap.
• * Spengler was still classified despite retiring as he had completed 75% of the race distance.
• ^† Tomczyk was unable to start due to an engine failure.

Milestones

• Second victory for Maxime Martin.
• Martin recorded his first fastest lap.

Standings

Pascal Wehrlein remained at the head of the title hunt as the first day of action at the Nürburgring, and had seen his advantage grow to 27 points. Edoardo Mortara, meanwhile, had risen to second on 128, while Mattias Ekström had dropped to third, a point behind the Italian. Jamie Green was next up ahead of Marco Wittmann, with the latter level on points with Bruno Spengler but considered ahead of the Canadian courtesy of his race victory earlier in the season.

In the Teams' Championship it was gooix/Original-Teile Mercedes-AMG whom led the charge, and had increased their tally to 211 points for the campaign. BMW Team RMG had climbed to second, 36 off the lead, while sister team BMW Team MTEK had slipped to third on 160. BMW, meanwhile, had retained the initiative in the Manufacturers' Championship, while Mercedes-AMG had moved ahead of Audi.

2015 Drivers' Championship Pos. Name Pts. +/- 1st Pascal Wehrlein 155 ◄0 2nd Edoardo Mortara 128 ▲1 3rd Mattias Ekström 127 ▼1 4th Jamie Green 107 ◄0 5th Marco Wittmann 104 ▲1 6th Bruno Spengler 104 ▼1 7th Gary Paffett 87 ◄0 8th Augusto Farfus 73 ◄0 9th António Félix da Costa 73 ◄0 10th Maxime Martin 71 ▲5 11th Mike Rockenfeller 67 ▼1 12th Robert Wickens 61 ▼1 13th Timo Glock 56 ▼1 14th Christian Vietoris 56 ▼1 15th Paul di Resta 48 ▼1 16th Tom Blomqvist 41 ◄0 17th Miguel Molina 29 ◄0 18th Nico Müller 26 ◄0 19th Daniel Juncadella 25 ◄0 20th Martin Tomczyk 24 ◄0 21st Lucas Auer 18 ▲1 22nd Timo Scheider 16 ▼1 23rd Maximilian Götz 16 ◄0 24th Adrien Tambay 3 ◄0 25th Antonio Giovinazzi 0 ◄0

2015 Teams' Championship Pos. Name Pts. +/- 1st gooix/OT Mercedes-AMG 211 ◄0 2nd BMW Team RMG 175 ▲2 3rd BMW Team MTEK 160 ▼1 4th Audi Team Abt Sportsline 156 ▼1 5th Audi Team Rosberg 133 ◄0 6th Audi Team Abt 131 ▲1 7th BMW Team RBM 114 ▼1 8th ART Grand Prix Mercedes 105 ▲2 9th Silberpfeil Mercedes-AMG 101 ▼1 10th BMW Team Schnitzer 97 ▼1 11th Audi Team Phoenix 83 ◄0 12th Petronas Mercedes-AMG 41 ◄0 2015 Manufacturers' Championship Pos. Name Pts. +/- 1st BMW 521 ◄0 2nd Mercedes-AMG 466 ▲1 3rd Audi 441 ▼1

References

Images and Videos:

References: