“Unfortunately, I still have to wait for my first DTM victory,” said Frijns after taking third with a pass shortly before the finish. “It was definitely a crazy race. I started from pole and had the feeling that the pace was pretty okay. René (Rast) and Nico (Müller) behind me had a similar pace. All three of us pitted for tires quite late. When I came out again, I was only seventh. It was extremely difficult to fight my way back to the front.”
Just behind Frijns, Jamie Green from Audi Sport Team Rosberg crossed the finish line in fourth. “I stopped pretty early and was able to build a good gap afterwards,” said Green. “As the leader you are not allowed to use Push-to-Pass or DRS. That’s why Timo Glock and Lucas Auer caught me and finally passed me. Afterwards, I was able to keep up well with the two BMWs, but I didn’t want to try a crazy move in the end. While trying to overtake Timo Glock, I came out of the last corner badly and Robin caught me. A pity, because a podium would have been great today.”
In a similar move, championship leader Nico Müller took fifth away from defending champion René Rast on the finish straight. Just 0.011 seconds separated the two title rivals – 78 thousandths less than in their photo finish a week ago.
“This was a very strange race,” said Nico Müller. “At first, I didn’t understand what we did wrong. We stopped late and lost places as a result. But that’s normal. The only strange thing was that we couldn’t make up the positions this time despite the fresher tires. Everyone defended themselves with DRS. That’s why we lost the chance to catch up with the two BMWs in front. When René had no more DRS, I overtook him basically at the finish line. That was my only highlight. Until the pitstop, I thought that we would fight for victory today again. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.”
René Rast drew a similar conclusion: “In the fight between Robin, Nico and me we probably concentrated too much on ourselves and overlooked that the BMWs were pitting quite early, managing an undercut. That’s a bit of a shame because Nico, Robin and I could have all won the race today.”