Having moved to the top of the DTM standings after Race-1, Liam Lawson extended his championship lead with second place in Race-2 at Assen. A quick Alex Albon finished fifth.
Aggressive. The Ferraris started from the second row, attacking Wittmann while the poleman Auer pulled away from the group. Like yesterday, the BMW driver was very determined to protect his position and Lawson, despite getting off to a faster start than his rival, was forced to postpone his attack and was passed by his teammate.
Undercut. Lawson decided to imitate the strategy that had proved successful in Race-1 by pitting on lap six, one lap ahead of Wittmann and Albon. The New Zealander’s undercut proved successful, allowing the Red Bull AF Corse driver to pull alongside the BMW man as he exited the pit lane, taking advantage of warmer tyres to pass him on turn two. With Auer in the virtual lead and Lawson in second, the race was still open, waiting for race leader Kelvin Van der Linde to pit.
Slipstream. The Audi driver made his mandatory stop on lap 21, returning just a few fractions ahead of Wittmann. In the BMW driver’s slipstream and ahead of Maximilian Götz, Albon also tried to chase the South African, but with no luck. At the front, Lawson cut the gap to Auer to just over a second, while Albon was five-tenths down on Van der Linde, who was still battling it out with Wittmann.
Pulling away. A few seconds from the end of the 55-minute race, Juncadella, in third, stopped his Mercedes at the edge of the track, allowing Wittmann to take his place on the podium. Two laps later, the chequered flag marked Lucas Auer’s first win of the season, second place for Liam Lawson’s 488 GT3 Evo 2020 and Alex Albon’s fifth. With two rounds to go, this result puts the Red Bull AF Corse driver on 175 points, extending his lead to 10 points over Marco Wittmann, 15 over Van der Linde and 20 over Maximilian Götz. Alex Albon is sixth on 104.
With four races still to run, the DTM drivers will be back in action over the weekend of October 1-3 in Hockenheim.
After Spielberg, Liam Lawson enjoyed another memorable weekend at Assen, with the Red Bull AF Corse driver taking the championship lead. The New Zealander’s two podiums show his great chemistry with the 488 GT3 Evo 2020, while after the disappointment of Race-1, Albon took a fine fifth place in round two at the Dutch track.
Liam Lawson: “This weekend has been really really good for points. Taking the lead is really positive and now we need to try and maintain that in the last two rounds. Today the speed was good. I was flat-out for 90 percent of the race and trying to catch Lucas Auer but I couldn’t get close enough so congrats to him and his whole team”.
Alex Albon: “We have found a solution to fix the issues on the car compared to yesterday. We changed the car a lot overnight to get the car in a window which is a bit more normal and the pace came back. It’s good to know that we can get the car back up at the top. We’ve understood that we need to change the car quite a lot to get it back to feeling good. The main thing is that we’ve come away from the weekend with this knowledge and we can go into the next one stronger”.
Source. Ferrari
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