Major misfortune struck Jamie Green. The Briton took the lead from Edoardo Mortara at the start and came back from lap one as the front runner. But then the transmission of his Hoffmann Group Audi RS 5 DTM could not be shifted anymore. Green was forced to retire in the pits and, without any defenses, lost the lead of the standings to Mercedes driver Pascal Wehrlein (94 points).
The best Audi driver after the first half of the season is Mattias Ekström in second place of the standings with 86 points, ahead of Edoardo Mortara (83) and Jamie Green (81). In the manufacturers’ classification, Audi, after nine of 18 races, continues to head the standings with 337 points, trailed by Mercedes-Benz (300) and BMW (247).
“Obviously, we’re very happy about Edo’s (Mortara) dominant victory,” said Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich. “All our cars were very fast in the race. That makes the retirement of Jamie Green, who could have made a major step forwards today, all the more frustrating. The transmission is a specification component in the DTM. We need to find out what the problem was and do everything within our means to prevent something like this from happening again.”
The second half of the season will begin on Sunday with race ten that will be started at 15.18 (live coverage on ‘Das Erste’ beginning at 15.00 CEST).