Farfus fastest in DTM practice

Augusto Farfus set the fastest time across the two DTM practice sessions at the Red Bull Ring.

The BMW driver jumped to the top of the timing screen seven minutes before the end of the second hour-long session with a 1m25.641s lap, only to be immediately knocked off top spot by Mercedes driver Robert Wickens. But Farfus followed up with a string of faster laps, lowering the benchmark to an unbeatable 1m25.247s four minutes from time, more than 1.2 seconds faster than the best time he managed in FP1.

Christian Vietoris wound up being second fastest in FP2, and best of the Mercedes drivers, with a 1m25.475s effort inside the final minutes of the session. He wasn't the only late improver - Miguel Molina also did his fastest lap right at the death to finish third.

Jamie Green finished the second session fourth fastest, despite being second fastest two minutes from the end, while Wickens wound up fifth.

BMW's Martin Tomczyk was sixth, ahead Antonio Felix da Costa, while Pascal Wehrlein capped off a much improved showing for Mercedes with eighth, making it three Mercs in the top 10.

In the first session, Moscow winner Maxime Martin was quickest for BMW with a 1m25.985s, ahead of Molina and Wickens. However, unlike the other two, Martin could not make any serious gains in FP2, and wound up 20th fastest, having improved on his earlier time by less than six-hundredths of a second.

Still, Martin's afternoon was more productive than Paul di Resta's. The Scot's FP2 was over before he was able to set a proper lap, thanks to a trip into the barriers on the run down to the last corners. Di Resta's HWA crew now faces a race against time to have the car fixed for Saturday evening's qualifying session.