BMW traveled to Lausitzring this weekend for the next stage of the DTM season with great confidence. This was a track known to most drivers and better finishes were in the books for all of them, especially compared to the Spa outing. Unfortunately, things didn’t exactly go according to plan but the race was very entertaining nonetheless. Timo Glock put in a great performance, finishing fourth after starting off in P14.

The main reason why Timo had to start from the 14th position on the grid in the race was due to bad weather. He had spun out in wet conditions right at the start of the qualifying session and was unable to complete another timed lap. Then, for the race, all drivers went with wet-weather tires and that was the right choice, especially for Timo who had a great launch. The strategy played a crucial role afterwards though and an early switch to dry tires from Glock saw him gaining terrain fast.

“Fifth place in qualifying and fifth in the race; that’s pretty normal overall. The Audis remain the dominant force, even here. Our good pit stop strategy made us competitive for a time but to be honest, you have to say that the gap we saw in qualifying was also reflected in the race. We are driving at the limit but the Audi guys are maybe able to take care of the tires a bit better.

You notice that at the end of the race with the increased wear and when the tire deteriorates. That is quite a difficult situation for us and we will have to make sure that we improve our performance as much as possible. But we are not giving up,” said Marco Wittmann after the race, reiterating that there’s a noticeable performance difference between the cars made by the two manufacturers in DTM.

Wittmann and Eng were also able to improve in the early stage and seemed to be on course for the podium after their pit stops before falling back again as the race drew to a close. Wittmann came in fifth in the end with his Schaeffler BMW M4 DTM car while Philipp Eng and Sheldon van der Linder were also in the points, coming in eight and ninth.

The best-placed BMW representative in the drivers’ standings was Wittmann in fifth position with 38 points. The sixth DTM race of the 2020 season will take place on Sunday.