IMPORTANT DTM WEEKEND FOR AUDI IN HUNGARY
Audi with chances in all three championshipsYoungster Nico Müller holds DTM track record at the Hungaroring
From September 23 to 25, the DTM will be visiting Hungary. For Audi Sport, the weekend at the Hungaroring near Budapest is extremely important: the title race in the DTM continues to intensify before the season’s last four races.
Audi Sport started the 2016 season with the aim of clinching the title in all three championships. Four races before the end, its title chances in all three classifications remain intact at the Hungarian round. Audi driver Edoardo Mortara in second place of the drivers’ standings, with a deficit of 33 points and 100 yet to be awarded, is the fiercest rival chasing leader of the standings Marco Wittmann (BMW). In the manufacturers’ classification, Audi ranks in second place, 35 points ahead of Mercedes-Benz and trailing BMW by 57. In the teams’ classification, Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline (Edoardo Mortara/Mattias Ekström) has a deficit of only nine points separating it from BMW Team RMG (Marco Wittmann/Timo Glock).
“It’s clear that on the Budapest weekend we need to achieve more points than our competitors in order to put ourselves in a good position for the final attack at Hockenheim,” says Dieter Gass, Head of DTM at Audi Sport. “That’s why we had to do some homework before Budapest. First of all, we intend to improve our qualifying performance and to move our cars further forward on the grid. Especially at the Hungaroring this will be particularly difficult because that’s exactly what we were struggling with there in 2014. However, our subsequent race performance in 2014, with six cars in the points, was very promising. That, plus our strong Sunday race at the Nürburgring, is what we can build on.”
With 4.381 kilometres the winding Hungaroring track is the second-longest one on the DTM calendar. When the DTM visited Hungary in 2014 the fans saw an entertaining race in which Miguel Molina advanced from eighth to second place and Edoardo Mortara, following tough duels with the two BMW drivers Timo Glock and Bruno Spengler, in fourth place just barely missed the podium – after having started from grid position twelve.
“Two years ago, I was a struggling a little with the car,” Mortara recalls. “But since then, my confidence in the car has grown a lot and things are going really well at the moment. We need another good weekend to reduce the gap to Marco Wittmann. My title chances are intact and we’re going to battle up until the very end.”
In the thrilling final stage of the championship, Mortara will receive full support from the entire Audi squad, plus many Audi employees, in Budapest. The Audi plant in Győr is just an hour and a half’s drive away from the race track. With a workforce of more than 11,000 Audi is one of the major employers in the region.
After 1988 and 2014, this will be the DTM’s third visit to Hungary, a country with great enthusiasm for motorsport. On Thursday, a parade of the DTM safety cars and DTM race cars is planned through downtown Budapest. On Friday at 17:00, the first free practice is scheduled. The first of the two DTM races will start on Saturday at 14:55 and the second one on Sunday at 15:10.
ARD will be airing live coverage from Hungary on “Das Erste” on Saturday starting at 14:30 (CEST) and on Sunday starting at 15:00. The battle for the best grid positions can be watched on Saturday from 12:30 and on Sunday from 12:45 on ARD Channel ONE (previously EinsFestival). At www.audi-motorsport.com, there will be live on-board footage provided of both races and live streaming from various perspectives at www.dtm.com/live.
Part of the program again at the Hungaroring will be the Audi Sport TT Cup which has a special reference to Hungary. In addition to the A3 Sedan and the Audi A3 Cabriolet, the Audi TT Coupé and the Audi TT Roadster roll off the assembly line in Győr. The TFSI engine of the Audi TT cup comes from Győr as well.
