DTM 2014: Round 5, Moscow: Qualifying

Winner of the previous race at the Norisring in Nuremberg Robert Wickens posted a time of 1:29.148 minutes in qualifying. The Canadian will be in grid position 14 for the start of the fifth race of the season.

Fellow Mercedes drivers Daniel Juncadella and Paul Di Resta will commence the race from positions 15 and 18 respectively. Mercedes junior Pascal Wehrlein, Gary Paffett, Christian Vietoris and Vitaly Petrov qualified in grid positions 20 to 23.

Comments after Qualifying

Robert Wickens (25, Canada, FREE MAN’S WORLD Mercedes AMG C-Coupé)

”It’s been a rollercoaster weekend for me so far here in Moscow. I was happy with the car in first practice, then we made some changes for the second session that didn’t work as we’d hoped. We put our heads together to find a solution before qualifying, and the car felt much better after that. Unfortunately, I still didn’t progress further than Q2. My goal for the race now is to finish in the points. It won’t be easy, but I’ve started from further back before and still secured points. I’ll give it my best shot.”

Daniel Juncadella (23, Spain, Petronas Mercedes AMG C-Coupé)

”Qualifying was certainly not perfect but not bad either. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to post a clean lap in Q2, but considering our performance, we can be reasonably pleased with the result.”

Paul Di Resta (28, Scotland, DTM Mercedes AMG C-Coupé)

”It was quite a difficult qualifying. The car wasn’t easy to drive. The others improved on their practice times, but we qualified in the same positions that we were in this morning. We must now decide on a good race strategy in order to move forwards a little.”

Pascal Wehrlein (19, Germany, gooix Mercedes AMG C-Coupé)

”My car’s balance changed as a result of the higher temperatures as compared to practice. Things went quite well in this morning’s practice session and I placed ninth. Unfortunately in second practice, things were then worse than they were in qualifying. I think it was due to the hotter temperatures that we couldn’t repeat the performance from the first practice session. The next step now is for us to carefully analyse all the data.”

Gary Paffett (33, England, EURONICS Mercedes AMG C-Coupé)

”Qualifying was very disappointing from my perspective. Second practice was OK, but conditions changed ahead of the qualifying and that affected the car’s balance, which then caused us problems in qualifying. We’ve now got a great deal to do tomorrow.”

Christian Vietoris (25, Germany, Original-Teile Mercedes AMG C-Coupé)

”It was a tough session for me. I didn’t have a good feel for the car and, unfortunately, no real grip. It was already becoming apparent this morning and was problematic once again in qualifying, sadly.”

Vitaly Petrov (29, Russia, DTM Mercedes AMG C-Coupé)

”That was a really tough qualifying. Setting up the car properly is really tricky at this track. I was down on lap time after having suffered electrical problems in practice and it really showed. Every lap is important to find the racing line and the car’s limits. Unfortunately, I didn’t succeed. It’s a shame, but that’s just the way it is today. I hope that tomorrow’s race goes better and that I can maybe pull off one or two surprises.”

Wolfgang Schattling, Head of DTM Marketing & Communication

”It’s great to be back in Russia contesting a race. The DTM found a new home on its debut here last year. Unfortunately, qualifying did not go as well for us as it did recently on our victory at the Norisring. However, we were not too surprised. We know that we have to keep on doing better at tracks like these so that we can live up to our expectations, but improvements in such a hotly contested series as the DTM are impossible to bring about in an instant. We will now continue undeterred to work hard to prepare the cars for tomorrow’s race and go on improving our performance for the future.”