Frustration for Mercedes-AMG title contender Maro Engel after finishing seventh in Sunday's DTM race at the Norisring. When the Winward driver wanted to pull away after his second mandatory pit stop, fellow Mercedes driver Tom Kalender arrived - whose Landgraf team had its pit box directly in front of Winward - and subsequently blocked the path.
"I was able to make up ground well on the rain tires and slowly work my way forward, but then unfortunately there was the mishap during the pit stop," says Engel, who had already fought his way forward to seventh place from twelfth on the grid, speaking to ran.de. "The sister team came in. It was actually agreed that this would not happen. We have to analyze that afterwards."
Particularly bitter: Engel was serviced in a fast 6.8 seconds by his mechanics, but then had to wait for about three seconds, otherwise he would have risked an unsafe release penalty. "Stop, stop, stop - go behind Kalender," shouted race engineer Mauricio Moreira over the radio.
Why Kalender's stop "slipped" into Engel's lap
The lollipop man initially held the sign in front of the car, but Engel started moving anyway. Then he held it in front of the windshield again - and the Winward Mercedes driver reacted in time to prevent a penalty. "I think we did everything right from my team's side," says Engel, clearing his crew of any blame after finishing seventh.
But how did the unfortunate incident happen in the first place? And what does Engel mean when he says that it was "agreed that this would not happen"? "The bottom line is it was a misunderstanding," explains Thomas Jager, who serves as the Sporting Director for the DTM department at Mercedes-AMG, in an interview with Motorsport-Total.com. "Tom was actually supposed to come in at the end of lap 40 because he was a bit further back."
AMG demands consequences: "Must synchronize this better"
The second pit stop window opened when the leaders had already passed the pit entry, but the 13th-placed Kalender had not. According to Jager, the youngster's stop was "actually set, but then the engineer felt it was a bit too close - and he didn't want to take the risk that the pit stop window wasn't open yet."
As a result, the Landgraf Mercedes driver's pit stop "slipped into the next lap," which was the same lap Engel's stop was planned for. The fact that both were now coming in at the same time, leading to one of the drivers being blocked in the narrow Norisring pit lane, could no longer be averted in the short amount of time available.
"Because the lap here is so short, everyone was focused on the stop - and unfortunately they forgot to say: 'Hey, we have to keep either Maro or Tom out now'." According to Jager, there has already been a discussion in which it was made clear "that we have to synchronize this better so that we don't stand in each other's way."
How many positions did the mishap cost Engel?
Because especially "when the field is very close together, this can cost massive positions," Jager knows. But how did the incident affect Engel's race? "I don't know how much it made a difference, maybe two places," says the Monaco resident, who sits in second place in the overall standings at the halfway point, nine points behind winner Nicki Thiim. "But that's sport: Wipe your mouth and keep going!"
And what does Jager believe? "Maro was seventh before and after. He was perhaps denied the chance to move further forward." After the stop, a battle group consisting of Arjun Maini, Jules Gounon, and Thierry Vermeulen, who occupied places four to six, was three to five seconds ahead of Engel. And Engel's strong outlaps are well known. He might have had a chance to drive into the top 5.
