Marco Wittmann has set the fastest time in the second free practice session ahead of this weekend's DTM season finale at Hockenheim.
The double DTM champion set a time of 01:29:881 in the closing stages of the Friday afternoon session, shortly before a safety car restart practice brought the session to an effective end. Newly minted 2019 champion Rast was second fastest in his Audi RS5 DTM, 0.608s behind Wittmann.
Timo Glock, who topped the first session, took third ahead of Nürburgring race winner Jamie Green in fourth. Fifth place went to Nico Müller, ahead of Mike Rockenfeller and Philipp Eng. The top ten was covered by less than 1,5 seconds and was completed by Pietro Fittipaldi, Bruno Spengler and Loic Duval.
The SUPER GT guest runners fared somewhat better than they did in first practice. Ryo Hirakawa held fifth in the session for a considerable time, until a flurry of fast laps dropped the Lexus Team KeePer TOM's LC500 to seventeenth. 2009 Formula One world champion Jenson Button was once again quickest of the three in fifteenth, 2,1 seconds behind Wittmann. Ronnie Quintarelli brought up the rear in the Motul Autech Nissan GT-R, but none of the Japanese cars ended up in the gravel like they did in first practice.
The same could not be said for Paul di Resta, who suffered a baffling failure as his steering column appeared to snap as he went round the Hockenheimring's final corner. This left the 2010 DTM champion without steering and crashing into the tyre barrier on corner exit. He was unharmed, but the R-Motorsport mechanics will have some work to do before tomorrow's final free practice and qualifying sessions.
Scary moment for @PaulDiResta – looks like the steering column broke as he turned into the final corner. Luckily, Paul was able to hop out unscathed.#DTMHockenheim pic.twitter.com/OdAhxOIK3n
— DTM (@DTM) October 4, 2019
