Audi Bows Out Of DTM With UNBEATABLE Numbers
With 28 victories, 95 podiums, 29 pole positions, 28 fastest race laps and all six championship titles, Audi’s RS 5 DTM says goodbye to the racing series. Last Sunday was the last race for Audi at the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters and they sure put on a show. In fact, they basically stole the show the entire season with those numbers.
It was an exceptionally short DTM season with just 100 days between the opening and closing races. Audi managed to clinch the manufacturer’s title in just 50 days, which will be impossible to replicate.
The RS 5 DTM’s 2-litre engine was the most powerful unit ever fielded by the company at DTM and also its most efficient. It consumed 10% less fuel than the V8 it replaced. This vehicle was only fielded for 2 years but it ended on the podium in 88% of its races, winning 77% of all races between 2019 and 2020.
If that’s not enough, check out some of the other huge records set by Audi with this RS 5 DTM:
- 29 pole positions
- 28 fastest race laps
- Won all six of the championship titles in the drivers’, manufacturers’ and teams’ classifications
- Record-breaking advantage of 582 points in the 2019 season
- Another record-breaking advantage of 753 points in the 2020 season
- At eight races in the last two years, Audi scored the maximum possible points in the manufacturers’ championship (76)
- First manufacturer to collect more than 1,000 points in a DTM season – and that twice in a row
- Only manufacturer to make do with the engine quota
- The highest mileage of a single engine was more than 7,132 kilometers. Mike Rockenfeller completed the entire 2020 season (5,305 kilometers) with the same engine.
Congratulations to Audi on their amazing last 2 years at DTM.
Here’s the press release with more.
PRESS RELEASE
Thanks to the extreme reliability of the Audi RS 5 DTM, René Rast and Nico Müller managed to score points in all 18 races in the 2020 season.
With 16 wins, 17 pole positions and 16 fastest laps, 45 of 54 possible podium positions and all three championship titles, the brand achieved the most successful DTM season in the company’s history last year. All the records from the 2019 season were surpassed once again.
In the finale of the 2020 season at the Hockenheimring, all six factory-fielded Audi RS 5 DTM cars finished in the top six places. In Sunday’s race at Brands Hatch in 2019, all eight Audi RS 5 DTM cars started from the top eight grid positions.
All six Audi factory drivers finished the 2019 and 2020 seasons in the overall top eight in the standings. This has never happened before.
In the 2019 and 2020 teams’ championships, the three Audi Sport Teams Abt, Phoenix and Rosberg each finished in the top three. Three teams of a single manufacturer in the top three places in the DTM was last seen in the 2001 season. In 2019, Audi Sport Team Rosberg secured the title and in 2020, it was won by Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline, which is the most successful Audi DTM team of all time with 67 victories.
In Sunday’s race at the Nürburgring in 2019, Audi celebrated a 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 victory, thus equalizing the previous record (BMW at Zandvoort in 2015).
The Belgian WRT Team Audi Sport squad achieved its first pole position and the first podium of a customer team in the modern DTM era with Ferdinand Habsburg at Zolder in 2020. WRT set another record at the 2020 season opener at Spa-Francorchamps: Fabio Scherer became the first DTM driver to break the 300 km/h barrier with his Audi RS 5 DTM.
On all eleven race tracks that were on the DTM schedule in 2019 and 2020, the Audi RS 5 DTM holds the absolute track recordfor Class 1 racing cars. On seven tracks, René Rast is the new record holder, who is also responsible for the fastest lap ever driven by a Class 1 racing car: at Spa-Francorchamps, the Audi driver achieved an average speed of 203 km/h in qualifying.
René Rast achieved several records in 2019 and 2020. The German is the first driver to win three DTM titles in his first four years. In 2019, he won the title with an advantage of 72 points, the biggest margin in DTM history. He started from the front row of the grid 13 times and from pole position seven times. He thus beat the record set by Nicola Larini, who started from the front row twelve times in 1993. With 24 wins and three titles, Rast is now also the most successful Audi DTM driver in history.
After Bernd Schneider and Timo Scheider, René Rast is only the third driver in DTM history to successfully defend his title.
Audi successfully defended its title in the DTM drivers’ championship for the fourth time, also a record. Further new DTM recordsfor the brand with the four rings: ten victories in a row, 20 pole positions in a row, eleven fastest laps in a row and 17 pole positions in a single season.
In the 2020 season, an Audi RS 5 DTM led 601 of 649 laps, this corresponds to 2,663 of 2,865 kilometers, or 93 percent.
With 16 victories in one season, Audi broke a 25-year-old record in 2020. The narrowest finish in DTM history was also equalized: as in the 1996 Norisring race, Nico Müller and René Rast were separated by exactly 0.089 seconds at the finish line at the Lausitzring in 2020.
Within four years, Audi achieved the triple crown of titles three times, winning the drivers’, manufacturers’ and teams’ classifications in the same season.
Also impressive: in 2020, the front row of the grid was reserved for drivers of an Audi RS 5 DTM in 16 of the 18 races. Audi celebrated multiple successes in 15 of the 18 races in 2020.
About the Author
Subhash Nair Written work on dsf.my. @subhashtag on instagram. Autophiles Malaysia on Youtube.
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