Edoardo Mortara (SILBERPFEIL Energy Mercedes-AMG Motorsport) took his second win of the season and his second success at the Norisring

Gary Paffett (Mercedes-AMG Motorsport PETRONAS) took his fourth podium finish at the Norisring and now leads the drivers’ classification

Five Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTMs in the points: Paul Di Resta (Mercedes-AMG Motorsport REMUS), Lucas Auer (SILBERPFEIL Energy Mercedes-AMG Motorsport) and Daniel Juncadella (Mercedes-AMG Motorsport REMUS) are fourth, seventh and eight respectively

Edoardo Mortara: „That was a perfect day for me and for the team. My crew put in an incredibly strong performance today.“

Ulrich Fritz: „We’ve seen a very strong team performance here today. And with Germany playing in the World Cup this evening, it’s hopefully a good omen that Edo has won in a car sporting the colours of the national team.“

Mercedes-AMG Motorsport DTM Team get off to a perfect start at the Norisring season highlight: Edoardo Mortara (SILBERPFEIL Energy Mercedes-AMG Motorsport) and Gary Paffett (Mercedes-AMG Motorsport PETRONAS) secured the team’s third one-two victory this season on Saturday and the 107th in the brand’s 30-year DTM history. Overall, this was the squad’s 186th DTM victory and the 19th success for Mercedes-AMG Motorsport at Nuremberg’s legendary street circuit.  

And so, in what is a very special anniversary year for Mercedes in the DTM, Mortara has brought to an end the period without a win at the Bavarian circuit since the team’s last victory there in the 2015 season. For Edoardo, this was his second win of the season following success at the Lausitzring and the tenth in his DTM career. At this fourth race weekend, team-mate Gary Paffett finished on the podium for the fourth time this season to claim the 42nd podium of his career in the DTM.

Apart from Edoardo and Gary, three other Mercedes-AMG Motorsport DTM drivers also finished in the points. Paul Di Resta (Mercedes-AMG Motorsport REMUS) was fourth and just missed the podium. Lucas Auer (SILBERPFEIL Energy Mercedes-AMG Motorsport) and Daniel Juncadella (Mercedes-AMG Motorsport REMUS) crossed the line in seventh and eighth place respectively. Pascal Wehrlein (Mercedes-AMG Motorsport PETRONAS) booked P13.

After seven races so far this season, Gary Paffett on 97 points has a six-point lead in the drivers’ standings on BMW driver Timo Glock (91 points). Paul Di Resta is in third place while Edoardo Mortara is fourth. Mercedes-AMG (362 points) head the table in the manufacturer’s classification and are 87 points up on BMW (275 points).

Looking ahead to race 2: The eighth round of the 2018 DTM season starts on Sunday at 13:30 CEST (live on SAT.1 at 13:00 CEST). Third practice will take place before that at 08:30 CEST followed by the second qualifying at 11:10 CEST. During each race weekend, we will provide live timing data, live commentary, fan voting and exclusive behind-the-scenes videos of the Mercedes-AMG Motorsport DTM Team on our website at: www.mercedes-amg-motorsport.com/dtm.

Comments after the race

Edoardo Mortara (31, Italy):

  • P1
  • Car number: 48
  • Team: SILBERPFEIL Energy Mercedes-AMG Motorsport
  • Car: Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM

“That was a perfect day for me and for the team. My crew put in an incredibly strong performance today. Last year was a difficult one for me, but this season is going far better. I’ve already had one race win – that was at the Lausitzring – and in a couple of others, I was a bit unlucky, for example in the second race at Hockenheim and the other race at the Lausitzring. But things are going really well for me at the moment, and I’m obviously hoping for yet more wins to come. Hopefully, we can do an equally good job tomorrow. But in the meantime, I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for Germany this evening and hoping that my victory here will bring them a bit of luck.”

Gary Paffett (37, England):

  • P2
  • Car number: 2
  • Team: Mercedes-AMG Motorsport PETRONAS
  • Car: Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM

“Amazing! That was a mega race, and my car was very fast. It was important that I stayed out ahead of Philipp Eng after the stop. After that, it all went very well. I just had to wait for the right moment to get past Marco Wittmann. It was great fun in the final stage. It was a super battle with Edo, and I never gave up. It may have raised pulse rates among the team, but it was a really good race. P2 and taking over at the top of the championship are fantastic for me.”

Paul Di Resta (32, Scotland):

  • P4
  • Car number: 3
  • Team: Mercedes-AMG Motorsport REMUS
  • Car: Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM

“We generally just struggled for a lot of pace. In the second stint, I was involved in very strong battles and I was able to fight my way back to fourth. But that was the max we could have done today. The rest were too far away. All in all, it has been a very strong weekend so far. There are more points up for grabs tomorrow. It’s been a bit of a scrappy day, but when you have a fourth place these are crucial points in the championship, and the game is still on.”

Lucas Auer (23, Austria):

  • P7
  • Car number: 22
  • Team: SILBERPFEIL Energy Mercedes-AMG Motorsport
  • Car: Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM

“Today’s race was OK. I gained one position at the start but then had to battle quite hard – in fact, I brushed against the wall at one point. Obviously, that didn’t help, and I had to defend my position. In the circumstances, P7 is ultimately OK. We have great pace here, and if we can get our act together a bit better in qualifying, we may be able to get more out of tomorrow’s race.”

Daniel Juncadella (26, Spain):

  • P8
  • Car number: 23
  • Team: Mercedes-AMG Motorsport REMUS
  • Car: Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM

“Unfortunately, the early pit stop didn’t work out for us today. The start was OK, but I was losing a lot of time towards the end of the race. My tyres were degrading rapidly, and I dropped back down the field. Consequently, I was unable to finish any higher than eighth. So now I have to hope for a better result tomorrow.”

Pascal Wehrlein (23, Germany):

  • P13
  • Car number: 94
  • Team: Mercedes-AMG Motorsport PETRONAS
  • Car: Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM

“That was a poor first day of the weekend for me. In free practice this morning, I couldn’t quite get it together, especially as regards to the brakes and the traction. I was having all sorts of difficulties with the rear of my car. We’ll now try to sort these problems out in time for tomorrow and hopefully have a better day on Sunday.”

Ulrich Fritz, Head of Mercedes-AMG Motorsport DTM:

“We’ve seen a very strong team performance here today. The drivers and the pit crew too did just great, performed well and did not put a foot wrong. Well done, Edo, for taking the win and congrats too to Gary for finishing runner-up. With Germany playing in the World Cup this evening, it’s hopefully a good omen that Edo has won in a car sporting the national team’s colours.”

Race results: Top Ten

Pos Driver Manufacturer Time
1 Edoardo Mortara Mercedes-AMG 56:12.918
2 Gary Paffett Mercedes-AMG +00.681
3 Marco Wittmann BMW +01.286
4 Paul Di Resta Mercedes-AMG +08.550
5 Philipp Eng BMW +13.773
6 Bruno Spengler BMW +14.169
7 Lucas Auer Mercedes-AMG +14.874
8 Daniel Juncadella Mercedes-AMG +15.205
9 Joel Eriksson BMW +15.813
10 Timo Glock BMW +16.681

Drivers‘ Championship

Pos Driver Manufacturer Points
1 Gary Paffett Mercedes-AMG 97
(…)
3 Paul Di Resta Mercedes-AMG 79
4 Edoardo Mortara Mercedes-AMG 75
(…)
6 Lucas Auer Mercedes-AMG 61
(…)
8 Pascal Wehrlein Mercedes-AMG 41
(…)
17 Daniel Juncadella Mercedes-AMG 9
(…)
       

Manufacturers‘ Championship

Pos Manufacturer Points
1 Mercedes-AMG 362
2 BMW 275
3 Audi 112

Teams‘ Championship

Pos Team Points
1 BMW Team RMR 144
2 Mercedes-AMG Motorsport PETRONAS 138
3 SILBERPFEIL Energy Mercedes-AMG Motorsport 136
4 Mercedes-AMG Motorsport REMUS 88
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