Auer Grabs Race 1 Win In Portimao
Lucas Auer took the first race win of the 2022 DTM season on Saturday afternoon at Portimão in his #22 WINWARD Mercedes-AMG from German Luca Stolz with the #4 HRT Mercedes-AMG and Mirko Bortolotti with the #63 GRT Lamborghini.
Kelvin van der Linde (RSA, Team ABT Sportsline) ended up as the best-placed Audi driver in fourth, Norwegian Dennis Olsen finished in fifth place with SSR Performance on his DTM debut with Porsche. The best-placed BMW driver was Schubert Motorsport’s Sheldon van der Linde, who came seventh.
“I am overjoyed,” race winner Auer delighted. “We had a good strategy, that was the key today. I had a bit of luck at the restart, but that is racing.” Auer had benefited from a restart after 21 laps.
For a long time, Bortolotti looked safe for the race win. The Italian had claimed pole position with the Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini and also led the field in the race for a long time fairly comfortably.
However, a safety car intervention following retirement by his teammate Rolf Ineichen bunched up the field again.
At the restart, Bortolotti saw Auer, Stolz and Maro Engel pull away. Bortolotti: “At the restart, I simply didn’t have any power. I don’t have a clue what happened, I never had that before.”
Eventually, Bortolotti still secured a podium slot following an entertaining duel with Engel over the remaining laps. Kelvin van der Linde finished directly behind him. The ABT Audi driver had started from 17th place and benefited from a strong strategy and stayed out of troubles at the restart, something René Rast and Felipe Fraga didn’t manage; they both retired after contact.
Sébastien Loeb ended up 16th, David Schumacher concluded his DTM debut in 20th place. With a lap time of 1m 41.154s, Luca Stolz won the Autohero Fastest Lap award and secured an additional championship point.
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