Liam Lawson Makes DTM History With Monza Race 1 Win
Liam Lawson has taken the win at the first DTM race in their GT3 era, Saturday’s race 1 at Monza.
In doing so he became the youngest-ever DTM race winner, the 19-year-old from New Zealand delivering a perfect debut for Ferrari and AF Corse.
Mercedes-AMG, meanwhile, rounded out the podium on its DTM return with Vincent Abril and Maximilian Götz, both from Hubert Haupt’s team (HRT).
Alex Albon finished fourth after a furious recovery drive from 14th on the grid with his AlphaTauri Ferrari.
The first race seemed to show that the young newcomers and GT3 veterans have an advantage over DTM returnees, the best DTM regular was last year’s runner-up Nico Müller with the Team Rosberg Audi in eighth place.
“I am very happy with the outcome of the race,” said Liam Lawson, the first New Zealander to finish on a DTM podium – let alone win a race. “My start was very good, I was able to make up positions straight away. The pit stop was perfect and the pace was good until the end.”
The decisive moment came as Vincent Abril rejoined the race following his pit stop, almost side by side with Lawson. On tyres that were still cold, Abril had nothing in store as Lawson’s Red Bull Ferrari pulled away. “AF Corse were a bit quicker than us in the pit stops. We have to analyse that exactly, where we lost the time,” HRT drivers Abril and Götz said in unison.
From the start, Abril made the best of his pole position and led the way until coming in for his mandatory pit stop.
In temperatures of around 30 degrees, there were some hot battles in the field. The first contact was between Timo Glock’s ROWE Racing BMW and Dev Gore’s Team Rosberg Audi. For the American, this resulted in an early retirement while Glock incurred the first time penalty of the season.
Daniel Juncadella in the Team GruppeM AMG meanwhile, was unable to avoid contact with Müller’s Audi. The runner-up spun spectacularly, Juncadella also incurred a minor time penalty.
The first driver to retire from the race was Philip Ellis in Team WINWARD’s Mercedes-AMG, stopping from fourth place on lap two. His teammate Lucas Auer didn’t have any luck either. He considerably dropped back after an issue during the tyre change.
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