Sheldon van der Linde in the #31 M4 DTM moved up from his fourteenth starting position to win in the rain in the Sunday DTM race at Assen in the Netherlands. He pitted early and assumed the lead when the leaders pitted seven laps later. He held on for the win when the race resumed after a red flag was thrown to retrieve the Audi of Fabio Scherer, finishing ahead of Audi’s Robin Frijns and Nico Muller. Timo Glock in sixth was the next best finishing BMW racer in the order, scoring points for the marque along with Marco Wittmann, Philipp Eng, and Lucas Auer, who finished eighth, ninth, and tenth, respectively.
Jonathan Aberdein’s sixth-place finish was BMW’s best in the Saturday race, won by Frijns. In that race, van der Linde in seventh, Glock in ninth, and BMW privateer racer Robert Kubica in tenth also finished in the points.
After Sunday’s race, Rudolf Dittrich, general manager BMW Motorsport vehicle development, said “What a fantastic win for Sheldon van der Linde! Congratulations to him and BMW Team RBM on a brilliant performance in these difficult conditions. The early pit stop combined with Sheldon’s flawless drive paid off perfectly. He had a free run so was able to make up a lot of time and positions. He also mastered the restart extremely well as the leader and more than deserved the first victory in his DTM career. Timo Glock also had a fantastic race. Watching him as he ploughed through the field in the rain was a real pleasure. Generally, our cars, teams, and drivers did well in today’s conditions and made use of them almost flawlessly. All in all, it was great to drive in front of fans again at Assen, with whom we will celebrate this win briefly before heading straight on to next weekend.”
The Assen event marked the first of three consecutive weekends of racing for DTM; the series runs at the Nürburgring on the weekends of September 11–13 and 18–20.—Brian Morgan
[Photo courtesy BMW Motorsport.]