Defending DTM Series champion, René Rast for Audi Sport Team Rosberg topped the times in second practice session of the weekend at the Nurburgring on Saturday Morning.
Rast, who sits a disappointing seventh in the championship standings with six races of the season remaining, set a time of a 1:22.086, some two and a half tenths of a second ahead of the two Mercedes-AMG drivers of championship leader, Paul Di Resta and Silberpfeil Energy Mercedes-AMG Motorsport driver, Lucas Auer.
The best-placed of the BMW drivers was Marco Wittmann in eighth with a 1:22.491. Meanwhile, all the drivers in the field, completed by BMW’s Joel Eriksson, posted lap times within a second of each other, thus showing the closeness in the competition this weekend.
Second in the championship is Mercedes AMG driver Gary Paffett, who finished the session classified seventh, some three and a half tenths down on Rast’s session-topping time.
“This is the first time this season that I am classified first in a free practice session,” said Rast after the session on dtm.com.
“Weather conditions are good. I hope that we can repeat the same result in qualifying.”
Consequences for the first practice session were most apparent for Robin Frijns, with the Dutchman driving against the flow of traffic, thus incurring a penalty for this infringement. As this was his third warning of the season, this means Frijns will be demoted five places on the grid for Saturday’s race.
Qualifying will get underway for the first race of the weekend at 11:15 local time.
