Mercedes’ Lucas Auer took his second Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters career win at the Hockenheimring earlier this afternoon (Saturday, May 6th), after a hard-fought duel with BMW Team RMG’s Timo Glock in the latter stages of the first race of the 2017 season.
The Austrian, who has a ten-point lead in the current drivers’ standings ahead of Glock, admitted to German broadcaster Das Erste post-race, that this was one of the most difficult races he has competed in so far.
“I had no life left in the tyres, so I had to defend and make no mistakes,” explained the Team BWT driver, who is partnered by Edoardo Mortara this year.
He felt that despite having an initial strategy worked out before the race, the lack of radio transmissions made any developing situations trickier to counter, especially with a car balance issue arising in the second half of the race.
“You’re on your own with no real help,” stated the 22-year-old, who was initially showing a good pace by calmly extending his lead to nearly ten seconds by the time he took his mandatory pitstop.
Even with a delay of getting out of his pit box, Glock would close the gap and almost snatch victory from the youngster, who is now in his third season in the DTM.
But with the pair both losing traction towards the end of the race, Auer realised that he had to make defence count at a critical stage.
“When he tried to attack me the first couple of times, it really depended on me as I knew that his tyres were also close to falling away. I knew that I had to defend hard and then make the best of it.
“Yes, today was a lot more fun, having to fight harder, but it felt like the race was never going to end.”