Robert Seiwert
Head of Motorsport
Robert was already writing for sports media before his time at MSM. He has been reporting on DTM, Daytona, Le Mans and other events directly from the racetrack since 2011.MORE
Missed pole position by six thousandths of a second on Saturday, and in the lead by four hundredths on Sunday: Thomas Preining (Manthey-Porsche) continues his top form at the second DTM race weekend at the Lausitzring. The reigning DTM champion achieved his first pole of the season and the fourth of his young DTM career in qualifying for Sunday’s race (1:30 p.m. live on ProSieben on free TV).
In dry conditions, the drivers went through the usual qualifying thriller on Sunday morning. In the final minutes of the 20-minute session, the lap times kept falling until Preining prevailed with a time of 1:20.858. In Saturday’s race, Preining took third place on the podium, and the Austrian now has a good chance of another top result. “It was hard at the limit, I almost crashed twice,” said Preining with a sigh of relief after taking pole position.
Lausitzring: Manthey and Abt on the first row again
Preining will once again share the first row with an Audi R8 LMS GT3 from Abt Sportsline: this time with Ricardo Feller (1:20.902 minutes), who took second place. On Saturday, the eventual race winner and Abt team colleague Kelvin van der Linde had taken first place on the grid. Now the South African (+20 kilos of success weight) was able to secure fourth place on the grid behind Mirko Bortolotti (SSR-Lamborghini). “That was one of the best laps, I couldn’t believe it,” said Bortolotti, who had obviously not expected such a good result.
Will it stay dry today? On Saturday, a heavy rain shower forced a 40-minute break at the Lausitzring. Ayhancan Güven (Manthey-Porsche) drove to fifth place on the grid and once again secured a strong team result for the reigning champion team Manthey. Behind him followed a Lamborghini trio in sixth, seventh and eighth places: Oschersleben winner Luca Engstler (GRT), Nicki Thiim (SSR) and Maximilian Paul (Paul Motorsport). This meant that four of the five Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2s landed in the top eight on the starting grid.
BMW and Mercedes-AMG just barely in the top 10
Maro Engel (Winward-Mercedes), who had a good strategy in the rain chaos and was able to get onto the podium from 13th place on Saturday, suffered a setback with P19. The only rookie in the DTM field, Ben Dörr from newcomer Dörr-McLaren, was in last place.
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