DTM: Ekstrom denies Green Hockenheim win

Mattias Ekstrom backed up his first DTM win of 2014 at Zandvoort three weeks ago with a hard-earned victory ahead of Mike Rockenfeller and Jamie Green in the Hockenheim finale. The race came down to a straight fight between Ekstrom and Audi teammate Jamie Green, although the battle wasn't wheel to wheel.

Green, having started on the softer tire, jumped out to an early lead, and had more than 20 seconds up his sleeve over hards-shod Ekstrom when the cycle of pit stops kicked into life. At that point Ekstrom switched to the softer, faster rubber and started hunting Green down, the Briton having made the opposite switch.

With six laps to go the race was set to go down to the wire, Ekstrom just 4.8sec behind the leader and closing in fast, before a Daniel Juncadella crash essentially decided the result, the deployment of the safety car helping Ekstrom close the gap to virtually nothing.

When the race restarted with two laps to go, Green was powerless to stop both Ekstrom and Mike Rockenfeller – who had been shadowing Ekstrom the whole race – from charging past.

Green was actually lucky to finish on the podium at all, with Paul di Resta, another to have started on the slower tire, finishing right on the Audi's tail. But he fell 0.2sec of interrupting the Audi podium sweep, which wrapped up the manufacturers' title for the brand ahead of BMW.

Newly crowned series champion Marco Wittmann finished fifth, and as usual best of the BMWs, after been jumped by di Resta at the restart.

Timo Scheider suffered the same fate as Green in terms of his softs-to-hards strategy. Having looked good for fourth, the Audi driver was swallowed by di Resta and Wittmann at the restart and had to settle for sixth.

Martin Tomczyk and Robert Wickens came from nowhere to storm home on the option tire to finish seventh and eighth, ahead of polesitter Miguel Molina, whose chances were ruined when he ran wide on the first lap while leading, and Antonio Felix da Costa.

Edoardo Mortara, meanwhile, had a bad day. Starting third on the hard tire, which would have ultimately been the right strategy, he made a terrible start and fell back into the midfield. He later retired with crash damage.

Vitaly Petrov and Adrien Tambay also failed to make the finish, although they did get close. The pair crashed out together on the very last lap of the race.

RESULTS - 42 LAPS:

FINAL CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS:

Originally on Autosport.com