Financial Services Audi Audi RS 5 DTM #51 (Audi Sport Team Rosberg), Nico Müller
Nico’s Review DTM Races 4, Zandvoort
From the city of Nürnberg to the dunes of Zandvoort…two great venues in the DTM calendar and quite a contrast.
I was very much looking forward to come back to Zandvoort after my debut on that track last year, where I was fighting for a podium until a safety car ruined my race. Obviously that pushed my expectation and motivation even more and I wanted to score good points. The whole Audi team though was still carrying a pretty big weight disadvantage compared to BMW and our colleagues knew how to make the most of that:
On Saturday I struggled to find the optimal balance with my RS5 DTM and had to experience again, how extremely close the DTM field is. I ended up on the 16th starting position, only 0.15 seconds off 6th place.
I had a very good start into the race and gained some places on the first lap. In the end I crossed the line in P9 as second best Audi after a good, scoring 2 important points.
Obviously the goal was to improve on that on Sunday, but things did not go to plan: We didn’t manage to adapt to changed conditions in qualifying and I had to start from 20th on the grid. In the race, from quite early on I was fighting with a technical issue and later on had to retire as the problem was getting worse.
As you use to say, it’s the tough ones that make you stronger…and in the DTM world, they also make you lighter! So we are keeping our heads up and are looking forward to attack again at the Red Bull Ring in a bit more than 2 weeks time, with a bit less weight in our Audi RS5 DTM.