Tom Blomqvist celebrated the first win of his DTM career on Sunday at Oschersleben after a convincing performance. The newcomer took up the second race of the weekend from position two and managed to overtake his BMW brand colleague and polesitter Augusto Farfus shortly after the start. The 21-year-old Briton then proceeded to pull clear of the field to cross the finish line first after 40 laps with a 07.712-second advantage. Like in the previous day’s race, the race tyre of the exclusive DTM partner delivered plenty of grip and impressed with its typically high consistency.
After scoring seventh place in the first race on Saturday, Tom Blomqvist upped his game for Sunday’s round. In qualifying, the BMW pilot was only 19-hundredths of a second slower than polesitter Augusto Farfus (BMW), but was by far the fastest in the race and scored an emphatic maiden victory in the most popular international touring car series. Trailing the DTM newcomer over the line were his brand colleagues Augusto Farfus, Marco Wittmann and António Félix da Costa on positions two to four respectively, making, in a repeat of Saturday’s result, the four-time triumph perfect for the Munich automobile manufacturer.
After starting from the third grid spot, frontrunner Pascal Wehrlein lost two positions at the start but salvaged fifth place at the flag and earned another ten vital points towards the drivers’ championship. With this, the Mercedes-Benz pilot extended his overall lead by 14 points ahead of overall second-placed Mattias Ekström (Audi), who went home empty handed after yielding eleventh. The best Audi driver was Jamie Green on eighth. Timo Glock, who had won the second DTM race of his career the previous day, brought his BMW M4 DTM over the line in seventh.
Hankook’s DTM race engineer Thomas Baltes: “Again on Saturday we had a safety car phase early on in the race. It was important at this point to keep his tyre up to temperature so that he could push hard at the restart. The Hankook slick once again proved strong and it delivered a faultless performance. Also the structure of the Hankook race tyre withstood as usual even the hard driving over the high kerbs without suffering the slightest damage.
The Audi Sport Team Phoenix achieved the fastest pit stop and they are awarded 25 points for the overall rankings in the Best Pit Stop Award from Hankook. At the end of the season, the exclusive DTM tyre partner rewards the fastest pit crew with a trophy.
Tom Blomqvist (BMW): “I’m overjoyed and I still can’t believe I’ve scored my first win in the DTM. The car was perfect and I had no problem whatsoever with the Hankook tyre during the entire weekend. The slick worked very well, the track here at Oschersleben suits us and everything ran perfectly.”
Augusto Farfus (BMW): “Like Zandvoort, Oschersleben is one of the toughest circuits on the tyres. Under these difficult conditions, the Hankook race tyres were fantastic. Hankook once again did a great job.”
Marco Wittmann (BMW): “Today was a good day for me. I got away well at the start and could put a lot of pressure on the guys in front right from the beginning. I was totally happy with the Hankook tyres. With both sets I could push hard over the entire race and ultimately move up the field from sixth to third place.”
Pascal Wehrlein (Mercedes-Benz): “The Hankook tyres performed really well in qualifying. Early on in the race it was really sunny and we had adjusted the air pressure because the track was getting hotter. But then the sun disappeared, the asphalt cooled down, and it became more difficult to get the tyres to work optimally. With the second set of rubber we had the right air pressure and from then on everything ran very well.”
