Paul di Resta wins first ever DTM night race at Misano

Today it has been a day for history for the DTM. Misano round has come finally and, with it, they first night races. Tonight had been place the first one of the weekend and with the showers of teh afternoon, the show was ready for a hard battle on the italian track.

If we could define with one word the first night with night action on the DTM, probably it would be chaotic. On the one hand, night races are so beautifull and, on the other hand, today it has been a lot of action and, at the end, it has been the race with the most retirements of the season so far.

They weren’t incidents on the first laps, despite they took a lot of battles taking place everywhere, on top and on the back. Paul di Resta and Gary Paffett where leading the raceo n the firsts steps, but at the back there was closing battles.Low temperatures where adding the problem of a low grip and that complicated a little bit more.

And it came the momento that everyone was expecting. Edoardo Mortara and Phillip Eng made contact with Garfy Paffett and, in a intense fight, noth Mercedes drivers touch each other and it was the championship leader who took the worst situation with his direction damaged and being obligated to retire. Behind them, two of the Audi drivers spuned. All this situatgion made the safety car to go to the track for the first time.

That situation penalized Daniel Juncadella and Augusto Farfus race. Both drivers didn’t do their mandatory pit stop yet and they were the only drivers who had to do it. But they didn’t entry the pits at the momento and neither on the restart that toom place to another big incident involving Jamie Green, Bruno Spengler, Lucas Auer and René Rast. Al lof them had to retire.

Safety car came in again with only 20 minutes to go. When the race restarted again, Phillip Eng, who was second, was really agressive and overtook di Resta to take the lead. BMW driver was performing well and it seemed that his first ever DTM win could arrive today. Meanwhile, Farfus was pitting, but Juncadella still stayed on track trying to build up a gap.

Unfortunately for the spaniard, his race will end before the chequered flag while serious problems on his Mercedes and, Eng was beated nearly to the end, droping back to the eight position. At the front, Audi drivers Robin Frijns, Loïc Duval and Nico Muller where improving and it was the rookie who was able to made contact with Mortara and di Resta but, at the end, the dutch was only able to overtake the italian driver, letting the scottish to win and take the lead of the championship.