Lausitzring, Germany – BMW Team RMG driver Maxime Martin (BE) was in the points again in race two at the Lausitzring, and was once again the best-placed BMW driver in the field. The Belgian guided his SAMSUNG BMW M4 DTM home in eighth place. Martin has now pulled ahead of fellow BMW drivers Martin Tomczyk (DE) and Marco Wittmann (DE, both 12 points) in the Drivers’ Championship with 16 points to his name.

Bruno Spengler (CA) did cross the finish line tenth in the BMW Bank M4 DTM, but was handed a drive-through penalty for his part in a collision with Adrien Tambay (FR, Audi) and dropped back to 19th. This made Tomczyk the second-best BMW driver in eleventh place. However, this meant that the BMW Team Schnitzer driver narrowly missed out on the points. He was followed home by Timo Glock (DE), António Félix da Costa (PT) and Wittmann in positions twelve, 14 and 17. Augusto Farfus (BR) and Tom Blomqvist (GB) failed to finish. Victory, as on Saturday, went to Jamie Green (GB, Audi).

With ten minutes of the race remaining, the safety car brought the field back together following a crash involving Lucas Auer (AT, Mercedes) – this made for an exciting final few minutes with a number of overtaking manoeuvres.

Augusto Farfus was in a point-scoring position for long periods of the race. However, his Shell BMW M4 DTM was so severely damaged in a collision on lap 30 that he had to retire from the race.

Marco Wittmann was hit in the rear by an opponent on the opening lap. He had to swerve into the gravel bed and dropped to the back of the field.

Tom Blomqvist was forced to retire after two laps due to a fault resulting from a collision.

In total, 60,000 spectators followed the action at the Lausitzring on the second DTM race weekend of the year.

Reactions to the fourth race of the 2015 DTM season:

Bruno Spengler (BMW Team MTEK, Su.: 19th, Sa.: 11th): “The race actually went well and I was happy with our pace. The safety car period gave me the chance to close on Adrien Tambay. He collided with Nico Müller and I saw a gap. However, once I got into that gap the wheel locked slightly and I made contact with him. He spun – and I was penalised. Otherwise I would have been tenth. The positive thing is that I will now compete with less weight at the Norisring.”

Jens Marquardt (BMW Motorsport Director): “As expected, that was a tough race for us today. Maxime Martin was again the only BMW driver in the points, in eighth place this time. That is obviously unsatisfactory. After the safety car phase you could see that we took two or three laps to get the tyres working. We did not manage to get the maximum performance out of the tyres over the entire distance. This is not at all what we saw during the initial winter tests. We will have to investigate the reasons for this. The positive I can take with me from this weekend is the fighting spirit among our teams and drivers – even though we did not pick up a lot of points. That pleased me greatly.”

Maxime Martin (BMW Team RMG, 8th): “The race was virtually a carbon copy of Saturday’s. I had bigger problems than the others with tyre degradation. That was particularly a problem at the restart after the safety car phase. On the whole, this was a disappointing weekend from a BMW point of view. The fact that I was the best BMW driver in both races is the only positive I can take from the weekend.”

BMW Motorsport results:

#36 Maxime Martin (BE), BMW Team RMG, SAMSUNG BMW M4 DTM – 8th
#77 Martin Tomczyk (DE), BMW Team Schnitzer, BMW M Performance Parts M4 DTM – 11th
#16 Timo Glock (DE), BMW Team MTEK, DEUTSCHE POST BMW M4 DTM – 12th
#13 António Félix da Costa (PT), BMW Team Schnitzer, Red Bull BMW M4 DTM –14th
#1 Marco Wittmann (DE), BMW Team RMG, Ice-Watch BMW M4 DTM – 17th
#7 Bruno Spengler (CA), BMW Team MTEK, BMW Bank M4 DTM – 19th
#18 Augusto Farfus (BR), BMW Team RBM, Shell BMW M4 DTM – DNF
#31 Tom Blomqvist (GB), BMW Team RBM, BMW M4 DTM – DNF

DTM standings

Drivers’ Championship

Jamie Green (75 points), 2. Mattias Ekström (58), 3. Edoardo Mortara (58), 4. Pascal Wehrlein (32), 5. Miguel Molina (27), 6. Mike Rockenfeller (21), 7. Timo Scheider (16), 8. Maxime Martin (16), 9. Paul di Resta (15), 10. Gary Paffett (15), 11. Robert Wickens (14), 12. Martin Tomczyk (12), 13. Marco Wittmann (12), 14. Nico Müller (10), 15. Daniel Juncadella (9), 16. Christian Vietoris (6), 17. Timo Glock (5), 18. Bruno Spengler (2), 19. Augusto Farfus (1)

Team Championship

Audi Sport Team Rosberg (85 points), 2. Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline (85), 3. Audi Sport Team Abt (58), 4.gooix/Original-Teile Mercedes-AMG (38), 5. Audi Sport Team Phoenix (37) 6. SILBERPFEIL Energy Mercedes-AMG (29), 7. BMW Team RMG (28), 8. EURONICS/BWT Mercedes-AMG (15), 9. BMW Team Schnitzer (12), 10. PETRONAS Mercedes-AMG (9), 11. BMW Team MTEK (7), 12. BMW Team RBM (1)

Manufacturers’ Championship

Audi (265 points), 2. Mercedes-Benz (91), 3. BMW (48)

Canadians In BOLD