Thomas Preining charged to victory for the 16th and final race in the 2023 DTM season at Hockenheim with Mirko Bortolotti in second place.

After Thomas Preining secured the 2023 DTM championship in qualifying, the attention was still on whether he could make it a clean sweep this weekend having taken both pole positions and the Race 1 victory so far.

SSR Performance Lamborghini driver Mirko Bortolotti was just six-thousandths-of-a-second away from the champion’s pole position time, after attempting to match him in yesterday’s qualifying, but had his fastest lap time deleted due to a track limits violation.

Nevertheless, the final hour of racing this season set drivers and teams fighting for the win around the 4.574 km Hockenheimring circuit, as last year’s champion Sheldon van der Linde started on the second row in his BMW M4 GT3.

As the lights went out for the final time this year, Preining fended off his lead with Bortolotti at the front, whilst S. van der Linde got the best of Luca Stolz by taking third position.

Behind them, the train of GT3 cars roared away staying close to one another and kicked up substantial dust, although it was last week’s Petit Le Mans GTD Pro winner Maro Engel who jumped up into sixth place, behind Stolz who was not able to retain his third grid spot during the opening laps.

A safety car was deployed after just five laps of racing, after the #19 Grasser Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Christian Engelhart suffered an accident when Marco Wittmann’s BMW caught him on the rear.

He cruised to second place in yesterday’s race, and so this was a premature ending for him in the barrier, although he made it clear he was safe after the incident.

Rene Rast was the most notable gainer during the opening phase, having climbed to P11 from 23rd position.

After his destroyed Lamborghini was retrieved, the race got back underway with under 50 minutes of racing remaining.

Engel’s Mercedes-AMG was quickly challenged by Kelvin van der Linde’s Audi behind him, and the pair continued to race closely with one another for sixth place.

Thierry Vermeulen of the #69 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari lost several positions when he was forced off the track by Wittmann, who was given a black-and-white warning flag for the manoeuvre.

The #69 Ferrari 296 GT3 dropped to 12th position, and had Arjun Maini’s HRT Mercedes-AMG in his mirrors.

Twenty minutes into the race, the pit window opened for drivers to make their mandated pit stop for a set of new tyres.

Stolz and K. van der Linde made their early moves for the pitlane within the 20-minute window.

The front-runners stayed out, as Preining and Bortolotti fought for the lead and built a gap to third-placed S. van der Linde, before the Schubert Motorsport BMW driver made his trip to the pits.

Bortolotti pitted his Lamborghini on Lap 12 as Preining continued, and emerged on cold, fresh slicks from a well-executed pit stop.

Jack Aitken in the other Emil Frey Ferrari was amidst several tense fights in the midfield after many drivers, including himself, conducted their pit stops and remained in close proximity to one another.

Rast asserted strong pace amidst his surrounding rivals pitting before he did, maintaining his momentum as the triple DTM champion put in a redeeming drive from his underwhelming qualifying result.

Bortolotti’s earlier pit stop timing to Rast meant he warmed up the tyres sooner than the BMW driver, thus showcased an overtaking manoeuvre as the final pit stops were carried out.

The last drivers to pit were the SSR Performance Lamborghini teammates of Franck Perera and Alessio Deledda, as Perera waited until the very end of the pit window.

Elsewhere, Engel got himself in net-third place past Rast, who he built a gap upon shortly after he passed him.

Preining and Bortolotti were a second within another, as the field began to set personal fastest lap times.

Vermeulen was given a penalty lap three times for his collision with the #40 Audi of Mattia Drudi.

Right through into the final 15 minutes, Preining was under pressure from Bortolotti close behind, but the champion managed to keep his pace up in the #91 Porsche 911 GT3.R.

Preining eventually gained some space at the front, and the Austrian driver pulled 1.5 seconds ahead of the #92 Lamborghini of Bortolotti.

Deledda was ambitious upon a corner entry point, which led him to run into the dirt and the styrofoam billboards, although continued his way to the chequered flag.

After being crowned DTM champion this morning, he made it a clean sweep of both pole positions and race victories this weekend.

It was his third and final victory of this season and finished ahead of Bortolotti and Rast, who climbed 20 positions from 23rd on the grid.

Rast was a benefactor of Engel falling foul of a last-lap technical issue, where a bolt in the suspension of his Mercedes-AMG broke.

This allowed S. van der Linde through into fourth in the second Schubert BMW.

Engel wound up fifth, ahead of Laurin Heinrich’s Team75 Motorsport Porsche in sixth – Stolz finished in seventh, and Lucas Auer claimed eighth place.

Ricardo Feller claimed ninth position by the end, as Aitken rounded off the top-10 order.

The final Drivers’ standings leave the champion at the top on 246 points, and Bortolotti on 213.

Manthey EMA Porsche’s Thomas Preining became the first Austrian DTM Drivers’ Champion by securing pole position for Race 2 in Hockenheim.

After Preining’s victory in Race 1 on Saturday, championship-contender Mirko Bortolotti needed a mighty qualifying to see the championship go on to be decided later today in Race 2.

Preining entered the session with a 27-point advantage, meaning Bortolotti needed Preining to finish outside the top three positions in qualifying and the bonus points available, whilst landing a top two qualifying spot himself to reduce the advantage to at least 25 points.

In cool conditions, serious lap times weren’t put on the board until the closing moments.

Bortolotti laid down the gauntlet with two provisional pole times, breaking into the 1:36s barrier on his final attempt in the #92 SSR Performance Lamborghini Huracan EVO 2

However, Preining had the last laugh, snatching pole and with it the 2023 DTM Drivers’ Championship by sixth-thousandths of a second in the #91 Porsche 911 GT3 R.

After a teary radio exchange with colourful language, Preining pulled into pit lane, with Bortolotto the first to congratulate the new champion and last year’s champion Sheldon van der Linde quick to congratulate the Austrian shortly thereafter.

Preining’s time of 1:36.800s will go down in DTM history as a championship-winning time, with Bortolotti set to join him on the front row for the final race of the year, with a time just 0.006s back.

Luca Stolz secured third place in the #4 Team HRT Mercedes-AMG GT3, 0.201s back from Preining’s time, with 2022 champion S. van der Linde in fourth for Schubert Motorsport, with the #1 BMW M4 GT3 driver 0.228s off of pole.

Laurin Heinrich rounded out the top-five for Team 75 Motorsport in the #75 Porsche with a time of 1:37.048s.

Thierry Vermeleun led the line for the Ferrari 296 GT3 drivers, landing sixth spot in his #69 Emil Frey Racing machine with a time of 1:37.069s.

Seventh went to Kelvin van der Linde, the South African lapped the Hockenheimring in a time of 1:37.075s in the #3 ABT Sportsline Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II, making him the fastest Audi driver of the session.

Eighth went to Christian Engelhart in the #19 GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini, with a time of 1:37.110s.

Ayhancan Güven in the #24 Team75 Motorsport Porsche and Maro Engel in the #48 Team Mann-Filter Mercedes rounded out the top 10.

“I’m just extremely happy, I can’t even, I don’t even know what I feel, to be honest,” Preining said in pit lane after securing the title.

“A dream became a dream come true.”

Preining and the rest of the DTM field will sign off for the 2023 season with Race 2 later today, which commences at 13:30 local time (12:30 BST).

Thomas Preining commanded his way to victory during the opening DTM race at Hockenheim which extended his championship lead for Manthey EMA.

The penultimate race on the 2023 schedule provoked wheel-to-wheel racing on the eighth venue and final venue of the season, as the championship title fight edged closer to its conclusion.

Preining extended his championship after he took pole position, thus claimed the three points on offer for the privilege.

Mirko Bortolotti started in eighth position, as he attempted to close down the 13-point gap during the 1-hour Saturday race.

As the lights went out, Preining retained his lead ahead of Christian Engelhart’s #19 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, before Dennis Olsen quickly made a move to take second place.

This set Manthey EMA’s two Porsche 911 GT3.Rs in 1-2 formation at the front of the field as Jack Aitken jumped up to fourth place in his Ferrari 296 GT3.

Further back, there were several fights taking place with drivers keen to leave little room to spare.

Sheldon van der Linde’s BMW made contact with Jusuf Owega’s Team HRT Mercedes-AMG GT3 amidst the tension, as the pair fell back to the rear of the 28-car field.

Ricardo Feller, who is third in the standings, had his sights down on on Aitken’s fourth place.

After 10 minutes and seven laps completed, the field was more settled although a noticeable two-second gap separated third-placed Engelhart and Aitken behind, as the Emil Frey Racing driver faced more pressure from the cars which trailed him.

His position ahead of the closely-matched field enabled the front three runners to build a gap over Aitken, who was kept busy with defending from Feller.

Bortolotti ran in seventh position as his title rival pulled away, and his Grasser Racing teammate Franck Perera was with him in eighth.

After 20 minutes of racing, the (20-minute-long) pit window opened which saw Aitken and Feller each make their mandatory pit stop.

Bortolotti also pitted, keen to set himself about taking a fresh set of tyres as early as possible.

At the 26-minute mark, Preining made his pit stop having run a comfortable lead and emerged in third, although regained his lead after Olsen and Engelhart pitted.

Olsen emerged 10th as a handful of competitors had not yet pitted, nevertheless behind his teammate.

Their formation enabled Preining to keep the lead as Olsen was on-hand to fend off competitors, if need be, with a championship title at priority in the Manthey EMA.

Perera was awarded a penalty lap for speeding in the pitlane, hampering his proximity to teammate Bortolotti.

Speaking of which, Bortolotti was racing closely with Kelvin van der Linde.

K. van der Linde was waved a black-and-white (warning) flag after momentarily forcing Bortolotti off the circuit.

Meanwhile, Feller managed a cunning move on Aitken for net-fourth position.

Rene Rast’s race turned to misfortune as tyre damage was struck on his BMW M4 GT3, after wanting to defend himself after his pit stop on cold tyres which forced him to retire from the race.

As Preining led by four seconds over his teammate, and Bortolotti remained seventh, therefore the Lamborghini driver needed to climb at least one more position if he was to keep his title chances alive into Sunday’s race day.

Kelvin van der Linde was keen not to give away his vital sixth position to Bortolotti, though was kept on the stewards’ attention with a few track limits warnings.

With 10-minutes to go, Bortolotti made a push for sixth place stick in his Lamborghini.

Aitken was now being chased by Bortolotti, who was adamant to make up more places with his capable form.

Into the final five minutes, Aitken made a mistake which opened the door for Bortolotti and Feller to jump into the top-five runners.

By the chequered flag, Preining commanded the race lead ahead of his teammate Olsen, fronting a 1-2 for Manthey EMA and the Teams’ Championship.

Engelhart finished third in his #19 GRT Lamborghini, ahead of Feller and Bortolotti.

Sixth place was taken by K. van der Linde, who took the position in the final laps from Aitken, who finished in seventh position.

Eighth place was claimed by Luca Stoltz for Team HRT, as the highest-finishing Mercedes-AMG.

In ninth position was the highest-placed BMW of Marco Wittmann for Project 1, as Laurin Heinrich rounded off the top-10 positions.

Preining extended his championship lead to 218 points, after he took three for pole and 25 for the race win.

Bortolotti’s fifth place earned him 11 points, making his latest total points at 191.

He must claim first or second position in qualifying tomorrow in order to mathematically stay in the title fight.

Thomas Preining took a crucial pole position for Race 1 at Hockenheim in the #91 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3 R, giving him the advantage heading into the penultimate race of a hotly contested DTM season.

The Manthey EMA Porsche driver snatched pole late on in a session run in dry conditions, extending his championship lead by a further three bonus points to 13 over Mirko Bortolotti, who encountered track limits issues in the #92 SSR Performance Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO 2.

Christian Engelhart was closest to Preining’s time of 1:37.148s, with the GRT Grasser-Racing-Team driver 0.137s back in his #19 Lamborghini, with Preining’s teammate Dennis Olsen taking third in the second Manthey EMA Porsche.

With just over five minutes remaining, Ricardo Feller laid down an early benchmark, in the #7 ABT Sportsline Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II, which Bortolotti later eclipsed with just over two minutes remaining.

But the Italian driver, who sits second in the standings, had his lap time deleted for track limits and could not set a competitive time afterwards, resigning him to the fourth row of the grid in eighth.

This allowed championship leader Preining to ascend into a crucial provisional pole, which he would retain through to the end of the session as nobody could better his time of 1:37.148s.

Franck Perera in the #94 SSR Performance Lamborghini claimed fourth spot behind Preining, Engelhart and Olsen, with Jack Aitken claiming fifth spot in the #14 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3, just 0.345s back from pole.

Sixth went to Kelvin van der Linde in the #3 ABT Sportsline Audi, who set a time of 1:37.536s, with his teammate Feller taking seventh spot with a time of 1:37.567s.

Bortolotti lines up in eighth having surrendered three points in the championship standings to polesitter and series leader Preining.

Engelhart’s GRT teammate Clemens Schmid took ninth place in the #63 Lamborghini, with Luca Stolz rounding out the top 10 as the fastest Mercedes driver in the #4 Mercedes-AMG Team HRT GT3 machine, with a time just half a second back from polesitter Preining.

Last year’s champion Sheldon van der Linde had a miserable qualifying session, winding up in 27th place with a time of 1:38.856 in the #1 Schubert Motorsport BMW M4 GT3.

With Preining taking three points for pole, S. van der Linde’s poor qualifying run sees him ruled out of title-winning contention with 53 points left on the table across the two remaining races and Sunday morning’s qualifying.

As it stands, Preining leads the Drviers’ standings on 193 points, with Bortolotti on 180 and Feller still with an outside chance of title glory in third on 159 points, 34 points adrift.

Race 1 at Hockenheim commences at 12.30pm UK/01.30pm local time.