It was the decisive phase in the quite entertaining Sunday race of the DTM at the Lausitzring: In the 17th of 42 laps, the eventual winner Thomas Preining (Manthey-Porsche) suddenly found himself in the Abt sandwich: in front of him Kelvin van der Linde, who had just completed his pit stop and was defending himself with cold tires, behind him Ricardo Feller, whom the Manthey driver had overtaken shortly before with his one lap warmer Pirelli tires.
Van der Linde fought back until the 18th lap, when Preining pushed past the Audi driver on the inside in turn 8 and sent him into the gravel with two wheels. Feller also sensed his chance and pushed past his Abt teammate in turn 10 – contact included. The contact ended well, but the race management assessed the incident a while later as an incorrect overtaking maneuver and ordered a place swap. In Preining’s case, however, it was a warning without consequences.
Kelvin van der Linde: “No reason to blow this up now”
At the Abt command post, the pulse must have briefly shot up, although Feller and van der Linde did not want to make a big deal out of the contact and unanimously spoke of a “misunderstanding”.
“There’s no reason to blow it out of proportion now,” said van der Linde. “It was simply due to the different tires. At that point I was still focused on Tommy (Preining). I thought that I could maybe force him into making a mistake with a fake maneuver in Turn 7 or 8. But he didn’t let that deter him. Then I got a little push from behind that I hadn’t expected. That’s how it goes in racing.”
The South African, who leads the DTM championship after the fourth race of the season, also had no complaints about the duel with Preining: “For half a lap I thought I could keep up. But the car didn’t get up to temperature as quickly as expected. There was a big tyre delta. I made a small mistake in Turn 7 on cold tyres and couldn’t carry the speed into the middle of the corner. He (Preining) took advantage of that. Then Ricci (Feller) and I got a bit close, but in the end everything was fine.”
Ricardo Feller after friendly fire: “It wasn’t intentional”
Feller came out of this situation as the loser, after all he had quickly taken the lead from pole-setter Preining after starting from P2. The ordered place swap pushed the Swiss back to third position. Regarding the contact with van der Linde, Feller said on ProSieben: “It was not my intention to drive into his rear. As long as there is no malicious intent behind it, everything is fine. In the end, it all turned out well. Afterwards, we’ll have a beer together.”
Of course he wanted to win the race, Feller assured. He was not entirely happy with the way the ordered place swap went: after the contact on lap 18, the race control did not make the announcement until lap 28. The actual position change did not take place until lap 33 – 15 laps after the incident – because a safety car phase triggered by Maximilian Paul and Luca Stolz intervened. After the restart, Feller finally made way and let van der Linde pass.
Feller: “If the swap had happened before the safety car, it would have been much easier. They told me in Turn 7 when I got to the yellow flag (because of Paul and Stolz; ed.) that I should swap positions now. But Kelvin couldn’t get past. We could only do it afterwards, but then the safety car came. We did it at the restart and lost a lot of time as a result. It would have been a little different if we had swapped places beforehand. But that’s the way it is.”
DTM overall ranking 2024 at a glance
DTM leader van der Linde: “That was a shock”
Van der Linde leads the DTM table with 63 points after his Saturday win and P2 in the Sunday race. He is followed by Preining (55 points) and Feller (53 points). ‘KVDL’ had not expected that he would make it onto the podium again despite the 20 kilograms of weight he had gained: “That was my best weekend in the DTM! It went dramatically differently compared to Oschersleben. I had expected us to be in the top 5, but to be so consistently at the front was a shock. Today’s performance was also surprising because I had expected a tough day because of the 20 kilos. But after the first few laps, when the tires were up to temperature, I was able to keep up.”
At the season opener in Oschersleben three weeks ago, van der Linde was still completely behind, even though the Abts had turned his Audi upside down several times. A thorough analysis after the weekend revealed a hairline crack in the chassis, which was repaired at Audi Sport in Neuburg in time for the Lausitzring. “First place feels good,” said van der Linde with a sigh of relief. “Deep down in your heart you think you deserve to fight for the title. But small things make a big difference in the DTM. That doesn’t mean anything now, everything can change so quickly.”