BMW’s newly crowned champion Marco Wittmann posted the fastest time in first practice for the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters at Zandvoort in the Netherlands, ahead of Audi’s Mattias Ekström.
Wittmann posted the fastest time towards the end of the session to beat Swede Ekström by just 0.048 seconds.
BMW Team MTEK’s Timo Glock was third fastest, also within a tenth of the pace, ahead of Abt Audi’s Edoardo Mortara in fourth.
Phoenix Audi’s Mike Rockenfeller was fifth fastest, just one thousandth of a second slower than Mortara.
Sixth-placed Joey Hand was the last driver within a second of the pace, with the RBM BMW driver 0.481 seconds slower than Wittmann.
Completing the top ten were BMW’s Bruno Spengler, Audi duo Adrien Tambay and Nico Müller, and BMW’s Augusto Farfus.
The top Mercedes driver was 11th-placed Robert Wickens, who ended the session 0.748 seconds off the pace at a circuit Mercedes acknowledges is unlikely to suit their car.
Christian Vietoris, driving Mercedes’ new car at Zandvoort, posted the 14th fastest time in thecar’s first session, 0.939 seconds off the pace. The German has been given the new equipment as a result of being their lead driver in the championship in second overall.
The session ended early for Mercedes’ Vitaly Petrov, who lost control of his car after just three laps and therefore was last in the classification.
Top ten times
| POS | NO | DRIVER | NAT | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 23 | Marco WITTMANN |  |
BMW Team RMG | BMW M4 DTM | 17 | 1:32.002 | |
| 2 | 7 | Mattias EKSTRÖM |  |
Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline | Audi RS5 DTM | 18 | 1:32.050 | 0.048 |
| 3 | 17 | Timo GLOCK | |
BMW Team MTEK | BMW M4 DTM | 16 | 1:32.084 | 0.082 |
| 4 | 15 | Edoardo MORTARA |  |
Audi Sport Team Abt | Audi RS5 DTM | 28 | 1:32.336 | 0.334 |
| 5 | 1 | Mike ROCKENFELLER | |
Audi Sport Team Phoenix | Audi RS5 DTM | 24 | 1:32.337 | 0.335 |
| 6 | 4 | Joey HAND |  |
BMW Team RBM | BMW M4 DTM | 23 | 1:32.483 | 0.481 |
| 7 | 9 | Bruno SPENGLER |  |
BMW Team Schnitzer | BMW M4 DTM | 19 | 1:32.518 | 0.516 |
| 8 | 16 | Adrien TAMBAY |  |
Audi Sport Team Abt | Audi RS5 DTM | 22 | 1:32.694 | 0.692 |
| 9 | 22 | Nico MÜLLER |  |
Audi Sport Team Rosberg | Audi RS5 DTM | 23 | 1:32.694 | 0.692 |
| 10 | 3 | Augusto FARFUS |  |
BMW Team RBM | BMW M4 DTM | 19 | 1:32.700 | 0.698 |