Sitting in the departure lounge of an airport, waiting, gives one plenty of time to mull over the weekend’s racing events.
For all intents and purposes, the paddock had all but departed from Hockenheim by the end of last night – some happy with their efforts, others less so.
From the DTM arena, Marco Wittmann and BMW will be reasonably delighted having dominated the opening round, earning maiden victories for both himself and his Team RMG squad.
That it was BMW’s 60th DTM race win merely served to embellish the celebrations for the German marque.
Yet question marks remain as to whether the 24-year-old Wittmann can maintain that pace and consistency – but there is no doubt that Wittmann has grown since his debut in the category last year.
A year of testing with BMW in 2012 gave Wittmann the opportunity to learn the machinery and the techniques of DTM, but nothing could take away from his performance yesterday.
It was Wittmann who made the decisive move passed Tambay in the early laps and Wittmann who built the race winning lead prior to the stops, but this was all part of the BMW strategy.
Team RMG knew that if Wittmann got ahead of Tambay early enough, then the race could be delivered to them. That he never even lost the lead during the mid-race pitstops – with a little help from the struggling Bruno Spengler in 6th place – is a telling statistic.
Alas, we will learn more in Oschersleben in two weeks. If this is a one-off performance for Wittmann, then it may place the onus on another BMW racer to take the point for the manufacturer.
Thankfully, the 5th of May is a bank holiday in the UK (and many other countries) and so Monday is a day of relaxation – see reading, drinking tea and catching up with weekend events of the World Endurance Championship in Spa-Francorchamps.
