René Rast was ‘very happy’ to claim his second victory of the season in a ‘chaotic’ DTM race on the longer layout of the EuroSpeedway Lausitz, where he again saw off Audi rival Nico Müller.
Whilst Müller leapt into a comfortable lead at the start of the race from pole position, Rast saw himself down in fourth position at one stage after going off the circuit and into the gravel in the wet conditions.
But as the circuit began to dry out and the pitstop phase approached, Rast entered into a more consistent rhythm and he emerged from his pit stop in fourth and with better pace than those ahead.
Rast picked off the leading cars one-by-one and took the lead from Robin Frijns just five laps from the end of the race.
“It was a bit of a chaotic race I would say,” said Rast. “In the beginning with the wet tyres I made a mistake, went off track in the gravel, had a big gap to Nico already.
“But I knew the race can still change because the track dried up and I knew we had to put slicks on. I think we stopped at an OK moment; we could have stopped maybe a bit earlier.
“We lost a couple of positions against Marco [Wittmann] and Philipp [Eng], but we had better pace so I could pass them, and in the end it was just about tyre management again.
“Today was a lot cooler than yesterday so the car was completely different again. But in the end, I’m obviously very happy with the win.”
Rast admitted that after ending first practice in fifth and second practice in eighth in Friday’s dry running, he had started to have doubts about his pace.
“Obviously I’m very happy because yesterday in the practice sessions we were without any pace, so I’m always very happy when we are on top again.
“Because when you are at the back in practice you always have some self-doubts and you wonder what’s going on. To come back like that is always a good feeling.
“The conditions could be completely different tomorrow; I hope it’s a bit cooler than yesterday but let’s see.
“The Abt cars are very strong all season already, so we can expect them to be on top again, and we’ll try to challenge them as good as possible.”