This weekend Germany’s premier touring car series, DTM, is back in action at the Norisring for race five and six. The first four rounds have shown how close all three manufacturers are with a tenth separating the second placed on the grid to 20th at the last round in Lausitzring.
DTM Norisring Preview
Audi are leading the pack with Brit Jamie Green streaking ahead in the championship with three race wins and 75 points in the bag. At the moment, he is looking unstoppable and heading an Audi 1-2-3 in the championship standings with Mattias Ekström in second with 58 points and Edoardo Mortata in third on equal points.
Mercedes have certainly improved drastically since their abysmal season last year and have moved ahead of BMW. Pascal Wehrlein is their number one protégé at the moment, both within DTM and F1, and sits in fourth as the highest placed Mercedes driver with 32 points after a second place from the first race. Paul di Resta and Gary Paffett, who are in ninth and tenth respectively with 15 points each, follow him as the next best Mercedes drivers. It was a poor outing for Mercedes last time out but they hope to regain their form this weekend.
After rocketing to the front of the leader boards last year, BMW look to be having a ‘Mercedes type year’. The highest place drivers at the moment are Martin Tomczyk and reigning champion Marco Wittmann who are 12th and 13th with 12 points each and with a fourth place being the highest finish for a BMW driver so far. None of the rookies have yet to get off the mark. Tom Bomqvist in the BMW looks closest.
Nevertheless, this weekend is the highlight of the DTM calendar with its street circuit nature drawing comparisons to Monaco, as fans get closer to the action and the drivers than on modern venues. This weekend sees a 2.3km circuit with eight turns looking likely to be dominated by Audi. But DTM is so unpredictable and close throughout the whole field that it’s anyone’s guess.
Former Mercedes and now BMW driver Bruno Spengler holds to lap record from 2008 at 0:48:446.
