Lausitz: Philip Ellis rejoices, Nico Müller haggles 🎥

In the third DTM race, Philip Ellis from Zug celebrated a victory at the Lausitzring, which he followed up with a strong fourth place on Sunday. Nico Müller failed to get going on either race day. The highlights show how Philip Ellis' sensational victory came about. No one had him on the bill... Philip [...]

Editorial - 25 July 2021

The highlights show how it came to his sensational victory of Philip Ellis. Nobody had him on the bill...

Philip Ellis is the third DTM race winner under the Swiss flag after Marcel Fässler and Nico Müller, if you disregard German Mike Rockenfeller, who has been naturalized in the canton of Thurgau for a few years now. Unlike "Rocky," who joined him on the podium in third place after Saturday's race, Ellis, who was born in Munich and grew up in Zug, also drives with a Swiss license.

He also gave his German-Texan team WINWARD its first DTM victory and DTM returnee Mercedes-AMG its first win of the season.

Philip Ellis: "I am speechless. When I saw the checkered flag, I couldn't believe that I'd won this race. Ninth place on the grid was not the starting situation where you expect to win. After the safety car I got to the front very well. I'm just happy."

Philip Ellis does credit to his adopted country. He is flanked on the podium of Race 1 by New Zealander Liam Lawson and German Mike Rockenfeller, who is a native of Thurgau (photo by Hoch Zwei).

Only the Swiss passport is still missing
As a reminder (we put him here again in detail in the spring): Ellis is the son of a German and a Brit. The only difference between the professional racer, who grew up in the canton of Zug, lives in Switzerland and speaks a perfect dialect, and a Swiss citizen is that he does not have a red passport.

In 2011, as a racing rookie, he won the Swiss LO Formula Lista at the first attempt and is now, ten years later, experiencing the highlight of his career to date.

Despite 25 kilos of success ballast, Ellis put the Mercedes-AMG GT3 on the front row of the grid for Race 2 on Sunday morning. With this handicap, he was logically defenseless over the distance, but again came off respectably in fourth behind Maxi Götz (Mercedes), Liam Lawson (Ferrari) and Kelvin van der Linde (Audi).

Almost a zero for Nico Müller
For Nico Müller, however, there was little to gain at the 4.562-kilometer Lausitzring with its first ever banked Turn 1. The Monza runner-up in his Audi R8 LMS fielded by the Rosberg team went through the gravel trap after a minor collision in midfield on Saturday and dropped to the rear of the field.

Nico Müller enjoyed driving through Turn 1 in the Rosberg Audi, but in terms of results he didn't enjoy the race much.

Because the driver from Berne was the last to complete the mandatory pit stop, he still led the race for a long time ahead of Philip Ellis, so that on the monitor it looked like a Swiss double lead - a first in the history of the DTM. In summery temperatures, he finally crossed the finish line in 13th place.

In Sunday's 57-minute race over 36 laps, the runner-up from 2019 and 2020 still advanced from the eighth row of the grid to tenth place. That resulted in one more point.

Nico Müller: "We were too slow all weekend, especially in qualifying. Things were a little better in the race, but generally there was just something wrong with the car."

Ellis advances, Mueller sags
In the championship, Müller slipped from third intermediate place after the season opener at Monza to tenth, while Philip Ellis catapulted to third position with the most points of all drivers at Lausitz.

In the lead is South African Kelvin van der Linde of Team ABT Sportsline, who scored well in all four races (69 p.), ahead of Red Bull protégé Lawson (65), Ellis (48) and Götz (46). The next two races will take place on August 7 and 8 in Zolder, Belgium.