Thomas Preining scored a hugely important victory in the penultimate DTM race of the season at Hockenheim today, but will have to wait until the finale tomorrow to seal the championship. With just 10 minutes remaining in Saturday’s race Preining was on course to be crowned the new DTM champion. He held a commanding lead […]
The post Preining Wins Race 1 But Bortolotti Delays Title Celebrations first appeared on dailysportscar.com.Thomas Preining scored a hugely important victory in the penultimate DTM race of the season at Hockenheim today, but will have to wait until the finale tomorrow to seal the championship.
With just 10 minutes remaining in Saturday’s race Preining was on course to be crowned the new DTM champion. He held a commanding lead in his Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R, while his closest rival in the title race, Mirko Bortolotti, sat seventh in his SSR Performance Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2.
That would have sufficed for the Austrian to win the title a race early. However, Bortolotti battled his way back to fifth, and ensured he kept his title hopes alive mathematically, as he now trails Preining by 27 points,
The win was Preining’s second of the season and led home a 1-2 for Manthey, as Dennis Olsen followed him home. That result was enough to ensure the team from Meuspath won the Teams competition, while Porsche took the Manufacturer title for the first time in the history of the DTM.
“That was a mega race. It was less of a contact sport for me out in front than it was further back for a number of my rivals. Despite that, you always have to remain fully focused in DTM,” said Preining.
“We have now wrapped up the Team Championship, and hopefully that will be followed by the Drivers title on Sunday.”
Behind the two Manthey EMA drivers, Christian Engelhart backed up his good form with third place in a Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 for GRT.
The foundations for Preining’s win were laid at the start. From pole he successfully defended his lead from Dennis Olsen and Christian Engelhart.
The leading duo were followed by Emil Frey’s Jack Aitken and Ricardo Feller, currently third in the standings, who was unable to find a way past the Briton despite launching multiple attacks in his Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo2.
The mandatory pit stops then shook the field up somewhat. Bortolotti came in from seventh place, but promptly overtook Kelvin van der Linde during the tyre changes and returned to the track ahead of Feller and Aitken in fourth.
However, both Feller and Aitken had come in one lap earlier for their tyre changes, and were consequently able to regain their positions with some spectacular overtakes on Pirelli slicks that were already up to temperature. Kelvin van der Linde also passed the Lamborghini driver, who found himself back in seventh place.
At this point, the championship looked like a done deal for Thomas Preining, who not only held a comfortable lead but also set the fastest lap of the race. However, with ten minutes remaining, Bortolotti produced some hard but fair manoeuvres to overtake first van der Linde and then Aitken.
The 33-year-old eventually came home fifth behind Preining, Olsen, Engelhart and Feller.
“We started from eighth place and produced a top performance to get the most we could out of the situation. Unfortunately, qualifying did not go entirely to plan and we had a pole lap ruled out for exceeding track limits. However, that is part and parcel of motor racing. The overtaking manoeuvres in the race were cool, and we will try to get the maximum out of the day again tomorrow,” said Bortolotti.
The title could be decided in Sunday’s qualifying session, in which points are on offer for the fastest three drivers. A maximum 28 points are up for grabs on the final race day.
Qualifying starts at 09:30 on Sunday ahead of Race 2 at 13:30 local time.
Image courtesy of ADAC
The post Preining Wins Race 1 But Bortolotti Delays Title Celebrations first appeared on dailysportscar.com.