Daimler : Top-ten finish for Paul Di Resta in first race at Hockenheim

DTM season finale at Hockenheim: Paul Di Resta achieves a points-scoring result in first race on Saturday

• Paul Di Resta (Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM) finishes penultimate race of 2016 season in P10
• Paul Di Resta: 'That was a hard-fought point.'
• Ulrich Fritz: 'You can forget today. We just didn't find the right setup to finish in the points.'

Paul Di Resta (Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM) placed tenth in the penultimate race of the DTM season at Hockenheim which is a home fixture for Mercedes-AMG. The 2010 DTM champion won the second race in the season opener at the same venue.

His Mercedes-AMG DTM team-mates Maximilian Götz (Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM), Lucas Auer (BWT Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM) and Gary Paffett (EURONICS Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM) crossed the finish line in positions 17-19 respectively.

Daniel Juncadella (Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM) and Christian Vietoris (BWT Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM) booked P21 and P22. Robert Wickens (SILBERPFEIL Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM) retired with two laps to go but placed 23rd. Felix Rosenqvist (FREE MEN'S WORLD Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM) retired with defective steering.

Looking ahead to race 2: The final race of the 2016 DTM season will start on Sunday at 15:18 CEST (live on ARD at 15:00 CEST). The third free practice session will be staged at 10:55 CEST and the second qualifying session at 12:55 CEST (live on One at 12:50 CEST). The Mercedes-AMG DTM Race Hub at mercedes.me/racehubdtm, featuring live timing data, live commentary, fan voting and exclusive video clips hosted by Thore Schölermann will give an insight into what's happening behind the scenes at the Mercedes-AMG DTM Team during each race weekend.

Comments after the race

Paul Di Resta (30, Scotland):

• P10
• Car number: 3
• Team: Mercedes-AMG (Mercedes-AMG DTM Team HWA)
• Car: Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM

'That was a hard-fought point. I had no choice but to use the DRS relatively early in the race. Consequently, I was unable to use it later on for overtaking. On the penultimate lap, I got past Farfus but was unable to defend myself against Jamie (Green) who still had DRS in reserve. I hope tomorrow will be better for us.'& amp; lt; /p>

Maximilian Götz (30, Germany):

• P17
• Car number: 84
• Team: Mercedes-AMG (Mercedes-AMG DTM Team HWA)
• Car: Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM

'We've struggled a bit so far, just like last time out in Budapest. I was at least satisfied with my lap in qualifying, but we're simply lacking something somewhere. I lost four positions in the race, because I didn't have DRS any more. The car felt good otherwise. We now have to find where we're losing speed. We never really thought that the two best Mercedes would place tenth and 17th. We intend to show once again what's possible to round things off tomorrow.'

Lucas Auer (22, Austria):

• P18
• Car number: 22
• Team: BWT Mercedes-AMG (Mercedes-AMG DTM Team Mücke)
• Car: BWT Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM

'Qualifying was tough. We tried out one or two things, but unfortunately, it all went bodge. And so, the race became an interesting test for us where speed appeared to be a relatively optimistic term.'

Gary Paffett (35, England):

• P19
• Car number: 2
• Team: EURONICS / FREE MEN'S WORLD Mercedes-AMG (Mercedes-AMG DTM Team ART)

• Car: EURONICS Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM

'I was quite satisfied with the way qualifying went and thought that my lap was good. P13 on the grid then was a big disappointment. In the race itself, I immediately fell a long way back at the start. Then Timo Scheider pushed me out wide and I was way behind everyone else. After that, it was all about bringing the car home in one piece for tomorrow. Hopefully we'll have a better day.'

Daniel Juncadella (25, Spain):

• P21
• Car number: 12
• Team: SILBERPFEIL Energy Mercedes-AMG (Mercedes-AMG DTM Team HWA)
• Car: Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM

'Unfortunately, there's not a lot to be said about today's race. I had another very good start and moved up from P22 to P16 on the first lap. We wanted to check the car out, as we felt that something was not quite right, which dropped us back down the field again. I'm hoping that we can find a bit more pace by tomorrow for the last race of the season. Then I'll go fully on the attack again.'

Christian Vietoris (27, Germany):

• P22
• Car number: 8
• Team: BWT Mercedes-AMG (Mercedes-AMG DTM Team Mücke)
• Car: BWT Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM

'The weekend has gone quite well so far. I felt comfortable in the car, but we were simply carrying too much weight compared to the other manufacturers. We tried a few things in the race. For us, it was mainly about finding things out in order to attack again.'& amp; lt; /p>

Robert Wickens (27, Canada):

• Retired (classified P23)
• Car number: 6
• Team: SILBERPFEIL Energy Mercedes-AMG (Mercedes-AMG DTM Team HWA)
• Car: SILBERPFEIL Energy Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM

'The last few races were quite disappointing from my perspective. I fought with the pace of the car and had to retire early, because the door wouldn't close. Too bad. We're now expecting a long night ahead, when, hopefully, we'll make some improvements so that we can end the season tomorrow on a decent note.'

Felix Rosenqvist (24, Sweden):

• Retired
• Car number: 88
• Team: EURONICS / FREE MEN'S WORLD Mercedes-AMG (Mercedes-AMG DTM Team ART)

• Car: FREE MEN'S WORLD Mercedes-AMG C 63 DTM

'I got off to a relatively bad start, and I still have some work to do on that. In Budapest, my starts were OK, but today it was pretty bad. Even so, I managed to fight back to my original starting position over the first few laps. I was scrapping with Timo Scheider when I noticed that my power-assisted steering had failed. I stayed out for another lap before returning to the pits and retiring from the race. Unfortunately, that was a disappointing way to end the day. I had felt quite good in the free practice session this morning. There should have been more in it for us today.'

Ulrich Fritz, Head of Mercedes-AMG DTM:

'You can forget today. We just didn't find the right setup to finish in the points, but we tried out one or two things in the race in order to achieve a decent end to the season.'

Race results: Top Ten

Drivers' Championship

Manufacturers' Championship

Teams' Championship