With three triumphs at the “Race of Champions” under his belt, Mattias Ekström proved his outstanding class in stadium competitions several times before. Now, he has entered his name in the winners’ list at the Munich Olympic Stadium as well. One day after his 34th birthday, the Swede gave himself the best belated birthday present by clinching his first victory this season.
“It’s been a long time since I last stood on the very top of the podium,” said the Audi racer after his triumph. “Winning here in front of so many fans is particularly nice. I had the impression that the Olympic Stadium was pretty much in BMW’s hands – but today we showed to the whole crowd that Audi’s best.”
As the best-placed Audi driver in the DTM standings, Mattias Ekström had been placed for the eighth-final on Sunday in which he easily defeated BMW racer Joey Hand. In the quarter-final, Ekström took another BMW out of the race, the car driven by the current DTM Champion Martin Tomczyk. That his advantage of 0.090 seconds turned out to be extremely narrow was due to the fact that prior to the pit stop Ekström had accidentally shifted into idle on the track that had meanwhile become wet from rain, which caused him to lose nearly his whole advantage.
A clear decision was made in the semi-final in which the Audi driver on six laps snatched almost two seconds from the leader of the standings, Gary Paffett (Mercedes). And the two-time DTM Champion did the best job of handling the flooded track in the finale as well. After a slow first pit stop he made up a gap of nearly two seconds in the second of the two final heats within just three laps and ultimately crossed the finish line as the clear winner with a 1.476-second advantage.
“It was a very thrilling finale and a nice event that was good fun,” commented Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich. “Even spectators who weren’t into motorsport very much before were able to see how exciting and captivating the DTM can be. In the end, it was especially nice that Mattias (Ekström) managed to win for Audi.”
After a brief break, the DTM will be seeing a battle for points again at the Nürburgring on August 19 where Mattias Ekström was victorious last year as well.