The 2020 DTM season is finally on. The first race of the racing championship jus took place this weekend at Spa-Francorchamps. But unfortunately, the BMW DTM teams have not been very successful. In the Saturday race, Philipp Eng (AUT, ZF BMW M4 DTM) was the best-placed BMW driver in sixth.
Eng was joined in the points by Lucas Auer (AUT, BMW Bank M4 DTM), Timo Glock (GER, iQOO BMW M4 DTM) and newcomer Jonathan Aberdein (RSA, CATL BMW M4 DTM) in positions seven, eight and ten. Marco Wittmann (GER) missed out on the top-ten, finishing eleventh in the Schaeffler BMW M4 DTM. Sheldon van der Linde (RSA, Shell BMW M4 DTM) was particularly unlucky.
Having qualified in fifth place as the best BMW driver in the morning, he was forced to return to the pits several times with a technical issue in the opening stages of the race. He was at least able to complete the race and crossed the finish line in 15th place. Victory went to Audi driver Nico Müller (SUI).
Jens Marquardt (BMW Group Motorsport Director):
“First of all, it was nice to watch a DTM race live at the circuit again after such a long time. As we expected after the tests, tyre management across the full race distance was the big issue here. After a difficult qualifying, we tried to put what we had learned during the tests into practice.
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We saw with Philipp Eng and Lucas Auer that you can make progress in the race if you manage your tires well. Unfortunately, not all the cars managed to do that. We must now take a very hard look and try to do better tomorrow. Congratulations to Nico Müller on a squeaky-clean race. Everyone behind him struggled with tires. The key to success tomorrow will be getting a grip on this issue.”
Results:
01. Nico Müller (SUI), Audi, 26 laps in 57m 58.596s
02. Jamie Green (GBR), Audi, + 19.502s
03. Loïc Duval (FRA), Audi, + 22.839s
04. Timo Glock (GER), BWM, + 29.234s
05. René Rast (GER), Audi, + 32.032S
