DTM champion Rene Rast closes the season with one more victory

Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season’s finale took place at Hockenheimring, seeing Rene Rast confirming his second championship title with one more victory, the seventh this season, in the #33 Audi RS5 DTM.

Rast secured the title even before Hockenheim’s event but his Saturday’s victory secured the teams’ championship for Audi Sport Team Rosberg. His seventh victory this season also marked the 50th success of the Audi RS5 DTM.

On Sunday, the race winner was Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline’s Nico Müller, who finished the season second in the championship.

1-2-3 on Saturday: Rene Rast, Marco Wittmann, Mike Rockenfeller

On Saturday morning, Rene Rast was the fastest qualifier for the eighth time this season and then he converted pole position into his seventh victory. It was his 17th DTM victory in a career. His closest rival in the race was former champion Marco Wittmann (BMW), with Mike Rockenfeller (Audi) completing the podium.

The weekend at Hockenheim will have a milestone place in DTM’s history because it marked a continuation of the partnership with the Japanese Super GT Series, having three Super GT cars for the first time in the race against DTM machines. On Saturday, Honda was represented by former F1 champion Jenson Button, who was the sixth qualifier and finished ninth, Lexus was driven by Ryo Hirakawa (13th) while Nissan had no luck with Tsugio Matsuda who failed to start due to technical issues. On Sunday, Ronnie Quintarelli (Nissan) and Nick Cassidy (Lexus) were driving.

DTM Hockenheim Finale 2019 Jenson Button

Jenson Button’s Honda NSX-GT at Hockenheimring

On Sunday, Nico Müller clinched his third win of the season and fourth DTM win in a career. He shared a podium with Audi teammates Mike Rockenfeller and Rene Rast.

The season’s finale doesn’t mean that DTM season is over for all drivers because some of them will represent German manufacturers (Audi and BMW) in two non-championship Super GT races at Fuji Speedway, against a full grid of GT500 cars, on November 23-24.