After five consecutive races in the current Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season, Maxime Martin suffered his first no-points finish of the year on Sunday afternoon at the Lausitzring.
The Team RBM driver is now seventh in the drivers’ standings on 39 points, having finished 13th, and is now only four behind Mercedes’ Paul Di Resta, who was in the top spot coming into this weekend.
“Even though one or two points would have been possible for me today, we had a big issue on the pit stop, so I lost a lot of time,” said the Belgian to TouringCars.Net after the conclusion of the Motorsport Festival Lausitzring.
With the 3.478-km track causing a few significant problems for many of the BMW drivers, it was the same for Martin during the 60-minute race.
“The struggles we have is also related to the track, and on this track is to be more competitive.
“We had the heaviest car, and we know that it is a track that doesn’t suit us, and the end, we still, at least, scored some points, so what I can say?”
Martin has two top five finishes to his credit so far this year, which included his best result of second in race two at Hockenheim, following Timo Glock’s exclusion.
Ahead of the Norisring in three weeks’ time, which has been a successful track for Mercedes, he openly admits that the team has to work hard to get back on the pace of their rivals, having lost some advantage to both Audi and Stuttgart.
“We have to look forward now and to analyse and to come back stronger.”