Arjun Maini retires from DTM Lausitzring

The first race at the Lausitzring came to an end with Philip Ellis taking a surprise victory after starting from P9 on the grid. Liam Lawson in the Ferrari Red Bull AF Corse came home second after a steady race, and Mike Rokenfeller completed the podium. Mike finished behind Sheldon Van Der Linde but got third position after Sheldon was handed a five second time penalty. Indian driver Arjun Maini retired with 10 mins left into the race, due to a blocked radiator.

Arjun Maini was having a steady weekend at the Lausitzring, right until the incident early in the race. He topped the timesheet on the first practice session and fourth on the second practice session. His strong pace carried him through to a sixth position in the qualifying session. In the race, Maini got a decent holeshot into turn 1 and was holding his ground to the rest of the drivers around him. But before the third sector, Maini eventually got squeezed and tumbled down the grid to P19. Maini made his way up to P14, helped by a few retirements. However, Maini wasn’t posing much of a threat to the ones ahead of him. In the end, Maini had to retire the car after a blockage in the radiators meant that his car just didn’t have pace. Mercedes-AMG Team Getspeed decided to retire and save the engine for the second race at Lausitzring on July 25.

Nico Muller was in the lead for most of the race. But he was not there on merit alone.Rather,the team decided to bring him in for the mandatory pit stop on the penultimate lap of the race, eventually giving the lead to Philip Ellis. Initially, Ellis was being chased by Liam Lawson but Lawson couldn’t keep up with the pace of Ellis’ Mercedes in the latter stages of the race.,

Mike Rokenfeller took advantage of the five second time penalty awarded to Sheldon Van Der Linde, which was due to an unsafe release. This moved Rokenfeller to P3 and at the same time, dropped Sheldon down to P9. Arjun Maini, Vincent Abril, Daniel Jucadella, Maximilian Gotz, Sophia Florsch and Esmee Hawkey were the retirements of the race.

How does this fall into place in the context of the championship? Well, Kelvin Van Der Linde still leads the driver’s championship table with 54 points but Liam Lawson is not too far behind at 45 points.Liam’s strong second place finish means that the battle in the championship table has tightened after the first round of DTM at Lausitzring. Race 2 of Lausitzring will start at 5pm on July 25. Stay tuned for updates.