After Lucas Auer had worked his way up to two points from DTM leader Sheldon van der Linde before the deciding race on Sunday at Hockenheim, the aborted qualifying session in the morning ruined his day: He only started from eleventh place and was only able to gain weight with the 25 kilograms move forward in seventh place.
After the race, the runner-up didn’t understand why qualifying hadn’t started again after Felipe Fraga’s crash with 2:25 minutes to go. “If it doesn’t make sense to restart because the outlap and then a timed lap aren’t enough, then okay,” says Auer.
“But everyone would have done another lap,” says the Winward Mercedes driver, who had not yet properly used his only fresh set of tires at the time of the demolition. “They certainly had their reasons why they didn’t do it,” says Auer about the lack of a restart. “And in the end, Rene (Rast, pole setter; editor’s note) managed it, but most of the field didn’t.”
This is how race director Elkins explains the qualifying decision
But how does race director Scot Elkins explain that neither a yellow flag was shown, which meant that many drivers could still have completed their laps, nor did the session start again?
“The red flag was required by the #74 accident in turn 1,” says the American. “Because this is a high-speed section of the track, we could not risk recovering the vehicle without a red flag. And due to the extensive repair work on the crash barriers, we did not resume the session.”
Mirko Bortolotti is surprised about this. The Grasser-Lamborghini driver, who should have been on pole in qualifying to stay in the title race but ended up 18th on the grid, doesn’t quite understand the reasoning.
Bortolotti: “Then the repairs were a miracle”
“I was on my way to a pole lap, but then there was the red flag,” said the Italian in an interview with ‘Motorsport-Total.com’. “The entire paddock doesn’t understand why there wasn’t a restart and the explanation for that didn’t really make sense either, because the next racing series started according to schedule,” he says, referring to the BMW M2 Cup, which is 20 minutes after the DTM held qualifying.
“If the track boundary was damaged that badly, then they either did a miracle in repairing it, or it wasn’t damaged that badly,” Bortolotti said. “I don’t know. It’s a little strange, but it is what it is.”
Rast: “As far as fairness is concerned, it was the right decision”
By the way, Rene Rast, who benefited from the cancellation because he had already completed a fast lap at the time, does not find it unfair that qualifying was not restarted.
“Everyone would have lined up and the whole field could have driven a lap, the other half probably wouldn’t have gotten it together,” says the Abt Audi driver, who deliberately completed his lap early to prepare for any incidents. “In terms of fairness, it was the right decision.”
And winner Marco Wittmann, who set his qualifying time on a used set and thus finished fourth on the grid, shows understanding for the decision. “Of course we all had to make a sacrifice, but sometimes that’s a gamble,” says the Walkenhorst BMW driver. “If you go out late in qualifying, there’s always a risk of a red flag.”
Apart from that, you could have done your fast lap earlier on the fresh tires, he says: “I think there were even a few drivers who put on the fresh set of tires on the first run. Or who managed to do the lap before the red one To fly the flag. They just went out earlier. Sometimes you have to take that risk.”