For Edoardo Mortara (Audi), the fourth round of the 2012 DTM season at the Red Bull Ring in Austria will remain in his memory for a long time. After his maiden pole position on Saturday, the Italian went on to score his first-ever win in his 14th career start in the DTM. After 47 laps at the 4.326 kilometres long circuit in Styria, he crossed the finish line as the winner. Martin Tomczyk (BMW) finished second, 1.068 seconds down. Gary Paffett (Mercedes-Benz) rounded out the podium in third place and extended his points’ lead with his fourth podium finish from as many races. After four rounds, Paffett is in the lead with 83 points from Mattias Ekström (47 points) and Jamie Green (44 points).

Only one second later, Martin Tomczyk crossed the finish line. With his BMW M3 DTM, the reigning DTM champion started from fourth place on the grid, made his way up to finish second and scored 18 points in the battle for the title. After the race, the 30-year old said: “The timing of the second stop was perfect. I re-joined the field right behind the race leader. Today is a great day for the DTM. All three brands in the top three and a highly exciting race.”

British Mercedes-Benz driver Gary Paffett completed the podium. The points’ leader started from second place, battled for the lead and still had to let Tomczyk past after the latter’s pit stop. Paffett said: “We came to Spielberg to score as many points as possible for the championship. Finishing on the podium is great, even though, of course, I would rather have won. Fortunately, I was still able to extend my points’ lead.”

In the drivers’ standings, Paffett is now leading with 83 points from Mattias Ekström from Sweden (Audi), who finished fourth in Styria and now has 47 points to his tally. Brit Jamie Green (Mercedes-Benz) with 44 points and BMW driver Bruno Spengler from Canada with 43 points are also within striking distance. Green finished the race in fifth place, Spengler had to park his car and retire on lap 33

That was a fantastic weekend," beamed "Edo" after taking his first victory in what was only his 14th DTM race. "My first pole position yesterday and my first victory today - I’m simply super-happy. ‘Thank you’ to Audi Sport and ‘thank you’ to Team Rosberg - my guys worked incredibly hard in the past few weeks and months. This is the first reward today. I’m hoping for things to continue this way because I think we learned a lot here at Spielberg and made a major step forward. The battle with Gary (Paffett) was tough - but when you’re in contention for victory you won’t give in easily."
 

Pos  Driver              Team/Car              Time/Gap
 1.  Edoardo Mortara     Rosberg Audi      1h12m30.277s
 2.  Martin Tomczyk      RMG BMW               + 1.068s
 3.  Gary Paffett        HWA Mercedes          + 2.142s
 4.  Mattias Ekstrom     Abt Audi              + 2.769s
 5.  Jamie Green         HWA Mercedes          + 5.406s
 6.  Timo Scheider       Abt Audi             + 35.351s
 7.  Mike Rockenfeller   Phoenix Audi         + 37.260s
 8.  Filipe Albuquerque  Rosberg Audi         + 38.062s
 9.  Joey Hand           RMG BMW              + 39.419s
10.  Augusto Farfus      RBM BMW              + 39.904s
11.  Ralf Schumacher     HWA Mercedes         + 43.567s
12.  Roberto Merhi       Persson Mercedes     + 50.339s
13.  Robert Wickens      Mucke Mercedes     + 1m05.670s
14.  Susie Wolff         Persson Mercedes   + 1m06.161s