The penultimate day of the final Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters test at Hockenheim saw Robert Wickens as the fastest around the 4.574-km circuit, with a total of 10 drivers taking part in the new 2017 cars.
The Canadian completed a total of 134 laps, posting the day’s best time of a 1:30. 571 in the morning session, with Audi Sport’s Jamie Green and Nico Müller completing the top three, who were covered by just 0.363 seconds.
With times over two seconds quicker than last year’s final qualifying session, it shows how much an improvement we will potentially see at the first round at the Baden-Württemberg track in just a month’s time.
Austria’s Lucas Auer was fourth fastest, but completed the most mileage over the day’s duration, racking up 166 laps, posting his best time of a 1:30.948 in the morning.
He was followed by Stuttgart stablemate Maro Engel, who was only in the C63 AMG for the first half of the day, before Paul Di Resta would end up seventh fastest, behind the fastest BMW of Augusto Farfus in sixth.
DTM rookie Loïc Duval was 1.067 seconds off the pace set by Wickens, ahead of the other two BMW drivers taking part – 2012 champion Bruno Spengler and defending champion Marco Wittmann, who was only able to run in the afternoon.
The final day of pre-season testing starts at 0900 local time tomorrow morning, with the teams and drivers preparing for the final time before the season opener on May 5th.