BMW‘s Bruno Spengler claimed victory in the DTM Series race at the Norisring.
It was the Canadian’s first win in two years; with Jamie Green and Mike Rockenfeller taking to the podium alongside him.
Ahead of the race start, Green, Rockenfeller and Jake Dennis were all penalised five places on the grid for not slowing down enough under the red flag in qualifying.
Starting from pole, yesterday’s race winner René Rast made a far better getaway than he did in Race One where he stalled.
However, the German was out dragged by his Audi team-mates Nico Müller and Loïc Duval into the first corner.
The trio were three-abreast into the hairpin and all ran deep which allowed the fast starting Spengler – from fifth on the grid – to squeeze past them and into the lead ahead of Müller.
Rast attempted to get back ahead of the Swiss driver and looked to have the position back but was hit by Müller in the second part of the corner and the championship leader was left facing the wrong way.
Müller continued seemingly unaffected by the incident and set about challenging Spengler but he had to take to the pit-lane to serve a drive-through penalty as a result of the incident.
Freed from the clutches of Müller, Spengler settled into a rhythm and a comfortable lead before serving his mandatory pitstop at the end of lap thirty-two of seventy.
Green had opted to pit earlier, and cleared the BMW of Philipp Eng and fellow Audi-man Robin Frijns during the pitstop phase which allowed him to spend a few laps within a second of the leading Canadian.
The 2012 DTM champion was able to break clear of the Briton and spent the final stages of the race with a five second advantage to clinch his first victory in the series since they visited the Nuremberg circuit back in 2017.
In the closing stages, the pair out front remained stable but the battle for the final step of the podium was still raging on.
Frijns held on to the position having overtaken Duval and Eng but with fifteen minutes to go on the clock Rockenfeller caught the Dutchman.
The Audi pair spent three laps separated by just four tenths, but Rockenfeller had a better run off the chicane to secure the final podium place.
Rockenfeller then switched his attention to closing the gap to Green ahead but ended just over a second adrift.
Frijns held onto fourth ahead of Eng, whilst Duval had a lonely race to sixth after pitting at the end of the opening lap.
Rast recovered to seven to finish just ahead of Müller.
After bringing out the red flag in qualifying, Glock had to start down in seventeenth but battled through to ninth.
R-Motorsport Aston Martin‘s Dani Juncadella completed the points.
Ferdinand Habsburg, Dennis, Joel Eriksson, Jonathan Aberdein and Pietro Fittipaldi were the remaining of the classified finishers.
Marco Wittmann would have been hopeful of a strong result in his home race after victory there last season but a late retirement due to power loss but an end to that.
Sheldon van der Linde and Paul di Resta also retired.
The DTM returns to action 19-21 July at Assen.
2019 DTM Series: Norisring – Race Two
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