Last weekend, the DTM Trophy started its second season at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza in Italy. Heide-Motorsport made their debut within the championship, competing with three Audi R8 LMS GT.
Already in the first practice sessions on Friday morning it became clear that it would not be an easy weekend for the Audi team. The championship, together with the teams and scrutineering, approached a performance-based Balance of Performance, which could not be fairly resolved until the end of the event.
In hot temperatures, the first race took place on Saturday afternoon. After an unintentional breach of the rules, the three cars driven by Sophie Hofmann (DE), Lucas Mauron (CH) and Jörg Viebahn (DE) had to start the race from the back. From there, a strong chase towards the points started. Lucas Mauron collided with a competitor in the race and had to park his Audi R8 after suffering consequential damage. Jörg Viebahn crossed the finish line in tenth place and secured the first point for the team from Witten. The veteran also won the „Driver of the Race“ award. Sophie Hofmann also continuously improved her pace and finished the race in seventeenth place.
Thanks to the mechanics‘ hard work, all three vehicles were ready to race again on Sunday and the drivers were motivated to attack once more. A time improvement of around 1.5 seconds compared to the previous day gave the team confidence and promised an exciting race. Lucas Mauron, who had the best starting position with seventh on the grid, again showed a good race pace and was quickly among the top five. But then came the shock for the team: a drive-through penalty, caused by a supposed shortcut and the resulting competitive advantage, threw the Swiss driver to the back of the field and cost valuable points, which even a later apology from the race officials could not make up for.
All the more pleasing was the performance of the other two drivers in the ambitious team. Jörg Viebahn narrowly missed out on the points with eleventh place, Sophie Hofmann showed some good battles in only her second race in the series and was classified as the best driver in fourteenth place overall.
Rafael Kliem (Team Boss): Our first weekend in the DTM Trophy was a weekend to forget. Our drivers did a great job, but we were largely without a chance and unfortunately luck was not on our side. The fact that there was an unjustified and far too harsh penalty during the second race, which was withdrawn too late due to poor communication on the part of the officials, is very annoying considering the hard work of the entire team.
Sophie Hofmann (Driver #17): The whole team didn‘t have it easy at Monza. Nevertheless, I‘m quite happy with my performance for the first race weekend in the championship. I was able to improve continuously from session to session over the three days and I‘m sure that we‘ll all be stronger when we attack the second race weekend at the Lausitzring.
Lucas Mauron (Driver #33): The start to the season didn‘t go as I had imagined. We knew that with this BoP it would be difficult against the other cars, but I‘m still struggling with some of the decisions today. Big thanks to my mechanics who rebuilt the car after the damage and gave everything all weekend.
Jörg Viebahn (Driver #31): It was a hectic and pretty tough race, and the temperatures in the car were not easy to deal with. I had to fight hard from the back, but that was still a lot of fun. All in all, it was a good weekend with the Audi and the new team, which makes me want to do more!
