Racing News

Marco Wittmann clinched the DTM drivers’ championship with two races remaining in the season. Wittmann, 24, stayed out of trouble in a race plagued by penalties and spins, finishing sixth in his BMW Team RMG M4 DTM. Pascal Wehrlein, 19, who started from the pole and won the race for Mercedes, became the youngest-ever DTM winner.

Wittmann said, “This is sensational, simply unbelievable. It was a difficult race, I had to keep myself out of all the battles. In the end, that was the key to winning the title.

Wittmann’s title was virtually guaranteed before the race ended, as his closest rivals in the championship chase had problems. Audi’s Mattias Ekstrom, who came into the race second in points, fell back with an early excursion into a gravel trap and eventually retired when his car lost its left front wheel. Edoardo Mortaro, third coming into the race, started thirteenth and finished sixteenth.

Augusto Farfus finished seventh, just behind Wittmann, in his BMW Team RTM M4, and Team Schnitzer’s Martin Tomczyk finished eighth. Joey Hand, Farfus’ teammate, finished eleventh, clawing his way into the points from the back of the grid but falling back near the end after a spin. BMW racers Maxime Martin and Bruno Spengler finished fourteenth and fifteenth, while Timo Glock and Antonio Felix da Costa retired.

The manufacturers’ and team championships are still undecided; BMW leads manufacturers’ points and BMW Team RMG leads team points going into the next race at Zandvoort on September 28.—Brian S. Morgan