Audi Sport Team ABT Sportsline experienced a weekend of highs and lows in Budapest. The highlight: Mattias Ekström only just missed out on victory on Sunday and celebrated on the podium.
The Swede has thus climbed to fourth on the table. Ekström had intended to work mainly on his qualifying performance, and on both days he took an extra point for third on the grid. In total, Ekström collected 30 points in Hungary and drove the fastest lap in the race on Sunday. On Saturday, only fifth place was possible after an unfortunate strategy.
“I am happy with my performance in qualifying and my race pace,” said Ekström. “On Saturday, the start was really good, but didn’t go perfectly on Sunday unfortunately. Altogether though, we have made great step forward and I’m really pleased with this weekend.”
Teammate Nico Müller started from fourth in both races, and on Sunday finished fourth as well. The young Swiss drove almost the entire race behind BMW driver Maxime Martin, but was not able to overtake him. On Saturday, Müller was hit in the rear during the restart after a safety car phase, but managed to collect a point in tenth place nevertheless. “A podium would have been nice, but of course we’ll happily take the points,” said Müller in consolation. “Sunday was a good day, Saturday not so much.”
In total, Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline collected 43 points and put its cars on the second row on the grid and in the points in both races. SportsDirector Thomas Biermaier, on balance, was therefore satisfied: “Sunday was much better than Saturday. Nico had some bad luck on Saturday after the restart and just missed out on the podium on Sunday. Of course, we had hoped that Mattias could have held on to the lead on Sunday. But René on the fresher tyres was ultimately too strong and he deserved the victory. Congratulations to him! Last year in Budapest he was our guest in the pits – now he is a DTM front-runner. Respect! Now we are already looking forward to our home race in Nuremberg, where Mattias is always strong and Nico celebrated his first victory in the DTM.”