With the points lead switching three times over the course of the third round of the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season at the Lausitzring this past weekend, Mercedes’ Robert Wickens left the Brandenburg region as the current leader on 58 points, just three ahead ahead of BMW’s Marco Wittmann.
However, the Canadian’s race didn’t go entirely to plan, as he felt that it could have potentially been a Mercedes 1-2, as several issues halted his progress to have been potentially been ahead of Audi Sport’s Mattias Ekström at the end the 46-lap encounter.
“After the Slow Zone, I lost temperature and couldn’t get them back up,” said the Team HWA driver to TouringCars.Net after the post-race press conference on Sunday evening, having claimed two successive third place finishes.
“I’m kicking myself about the way the pit stop sequence worked out, as we didn’t have the best pit stop, but it definitely wasn’t the worst. For some reason, I came out behind [Timo] Scheider and [Martin] Tomczyk, who were having their own little battle.”
The 27-year-old explained that the peak performance that he could have had in clean air was curtailed, as it took him three laps to get past the dueling pair, which he felt robbed him of the second place finish behind Lucas Auer.
“But it’s another P3, and it’s hard to be upset about that, leaving the track with the points lead is a good feeling.
“With it being so close between the manufacturers, it’s anyone’s game and Norisring, historically, has been strong for us.”
Wickens has tasted the champagne on various occasions at the Nuremburg-based circuit, located on the banks of the Dutzendteich, which includes two wins over the past two years. The Guelph native has also won at the Nürburgring in 2013.
“Norising – it’s my one that I do well at. At the end of the day, you can’t back down, and we’ve been strong there and here in the past, but Audi caught us up easily and passed us.
“It’s taken us a long time to fight back for a win here. We’ll have to wait and see how it goes.”