Audi‘s Rockenfeller led the way in the DTM Series practice at the Lausitzring ahead of team-mate Mattias Ekström and Robert Wickens.
Last year’s race winner and current championship leader Lucas Auer was fifth fastest behind Jamie Green who claimed the first double win of the series at this track back in 2015.
The session was dominated by Audi with all six of the team’s cars finishing within the top ten positions, with Mercedes claiming the remaining four positions.
In what is his 150th DTM start this weekend, Gary Paffett rounded off the top ten just behind Paul di Resta.
It was a difficult start to the weekend for BMW without any of their drivers claiming a spot in the top ten, with Briton Tom Blomqvist leading the way for the Bavarian team in 11th place.
Defending champion Marco Wittmann was 13th place, with 2016 championship runner-up Edoardo Mortara the slowest of all the runners.
All 18 drivers were split by only 1.025 seconds, with just 0.097 seconds separating Rockenfeller and Ekström.
“We did long runs and focused on the race. Now, we have to sit down and take a close look. I wasn’t entirely happy with the car. Compared to the others, however, our performance was pretty good,” said Rockenfeller “at the end of the long runs, we have to make sure that we improve the details that I don’t really like, and then, hopefully, we are in with a good chance tomorrow.”
Free Practice 2 gets underway tomorrow morning at 08.40 (CEST) lasting for 30 minutes ahead of the first qualifying and race sessions of the weekend.
