DTM Zolder: Nico Müller is with the music 🎥

Unlike his Abt Audi teammate Robin Frjins, who lives not far from the Belgian border in the Netherlands, and other DTM colleagues, the Zolder circuit was new territory for Nico Müller. He was correspondingly cautious with his expectations before the second DTM weekend of the still young season - and relieved that it brought him another podium and good points in both rounds.

Pit stop at the ideal time
In Saturday's race, the Bernese definitely had luck on his side.

Nico Müller: "After I had traffic in qualifying and was therefore only eighth instead of fourth or fifth fastest, everything worked out in the race - a good start, a perfect pit stop during the safety car phase and a good restart. After that I was soon third and even close to Joel Eriksson. I was practically already past him and would have been second if he hadn't gone straight in the chicane."

So instead of third alongside the two BMW drivers Philipp Eng and Eriksson, Nico Müller could well have been second on the Zolder podium. However, the jury refrained from imposing a subsequent time penalty on the Swede, and so it remained that way.

The highlights of race 1 in Zolder, including Eriksson's shortcut mentioned by Müller, can be seen in the nearly four-minute video:

Overnight as third in the table
In the championship, the Swiss Audi factory driver even moved up to third intermediate place thanks to the 15 additional points for the second podium after race 2 at Hockenheim. Müller has never been ranked so high in the standings since the start of the 2016 season, when he also finished the very first race at Hockenheim in third place.

In qualifying for Sunday's race, Müller struggled with the first set of tires and then had slight setup changes made to his Audi RS 5 DTM. Unfortunately, the second attack ended with a red flag. His lap time so far was thus only good for twelfth grid position.

Advance after a botched start
The 27-year-old then risked everything at the start, and that went completely wrong.

Nico Müller: "I dropped back to P16, but thanks to a good pace and nice overtaking maneuvers on a track where this is very difficult, I was able to move back up to P11. The early pit stop even moved me up to P10."

The Audi driver took advantage of a safety car period to change tires for a second time, whereupon he sprinted to seventh place after the race was released after two turns. Caught up in a duel with Jake Dennis' Aston Martin, which lightly hit his rear and sent him through the gravel, the Swiss again lost ground.

Eighth place was little consolation when he saw where one of his Audi colleagues ended up.

Nico Müller: "At the restart, I had already passed Jamie Green, who still finished third. So the second podium in Zolder and even more points would have been in the cards."

Here are the highlights from the second Zolder race:

As good as never before
With a second-place finish, Austrian Philipp Eng took the top spot in the standings with 59 points, followed by Müller's brand colleague René Rast (54), who clinched a superior second victory of the season. Behind Marco Wittmann (BMW, 43) and Mike Rockenfeller (Audi, 42), the Swiss continues to lie in a promising fifth position with 41 points after two of nine DTM weekends.

Since his debut in 2014, this has been his best start to a season so far.

Nico Müller: "41 points, only two less than third place, is not bad for a start. But I don't want to waste any thoughts on the championship just yet. The important thing now is to keep doing well everywhere. That's why I'm taking it race by race and now already looking forward to the two races at Misano at Whitsun."

Müller finished the first of the two races under floodlights on the Adriatic in 2018 in a good fifth position. There is no doubt that he will not be satisfied with such a result again this year.

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