Rene Rast claimed a dominant, unchallenged DTM Race 2 victory ahead of teammate Sheldon van der Linde, as Preining reclaimed the championship lead at the Red Bull Ring.

Round 14 of the 2023 DTM championship continued the excitement from yesterday, bringing the curtain down on this weekend’s racing action before a nearly month-long wait for the season finale at Hockenheim.

Unlike yesterday’s rain-stricken event, the Red Bull Ring was dry status which welcomed quicker lap times and less weather-related tension.

Rene Rast took a record-breaking 26th DTM pole position for Schubert Motorsport, and the team locked out the front row in qualifying thanks to Sheldon van der Linde.

In regards to the close championship title fight, second-placed Thomas Preining started fourth at his home race and standings leader Mirko Bortolotti started ninth in his Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2.

If they finished where they started, then the pair would have drawn equal on 187 points, though with Bortolotti in P1 on countback.

At lights out, the Schubert Motorsport drivers started well and controlled the lead, whilst Race 1 winner Kelvin van der Linde dropped back from his starting position when he spun his #3 Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO2, triggered by contact with Tim Heinemann’s #9 Toksport WRT Porsche.

There was disaster for Bortolotti, as he fell to the back of the field after picking up a puncture from contact with the other Toksport WRT Porsche of Marvin Dienst.

This forced Bortolotti to make a non-mandatory pit stop, in addition to the mandatory pit stop he’d later have to take during the 20-minute pit window.

Meanwhile, his rival Preining had the upper hand after he moved up into third, taking advantage of Jack Aitken’s uncompetitive getaway at the green flag and distancing himself from the contact behind.

During the opening laps, Rast built upon his 1-second lead ahead of teammate S. van der Linde.

Several battles took place across the midfield, such as yesterday’s pole-sitter Laurin Heinrich who fought for P16 with Patric Niederhauser.

The highest-placed #63 Grasser Racing Lamborghini of Clemens Schmid was passed by Marco Wittmann in his #11 Project 1 BMW, having taken fourth position with a swift overtake.

Both Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3s rode in eighth and ninth, looking to fend off Bortolotti’s SSR Performance teammate – Franck Perera – who dropped to 10th after he started in seventh position.

After 20 minutes of racing, a 20-minute-long pit window opened for drivers to strategically conduct their mandatory pit stop, like third-placed championship contender Ricardo Feller in his #7 ABT Sportsline Audi.

A few raindrops began to fall on the track, but not enough for drivers to prefer the grooved wet tyres over slicks during the pit window.

Wittmann’s pit stop was slightly prolonged as his pit crew struggled to fit his new tyres, although he emerged ahead of Schmid who pitted as well, to initiate a duel for ninth, before Preining climbed his way past.

S. van der Linde pitted from second and maintained the position before his teammate Rast did the same from the lead, continuing a confident, mistake-free run at the front.

Twenty minutes remained of the 1-hour race, which marked the closure of the pit stop window.

The positions at the sharper end of the field settled as further back, Lucas Auer in the #22 Team Winward Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO attacked his teammate, Maro Engel, and jumped into 11th position.

K. van der Linde was among the four retirees from this race, not being able to match his race-winning performance from yesterday.

The same could be said for the other Audis, as Feller resided in the highest place of P15, and was challenged by Luca Engstler’s #8 Mercedes-AMG behind during the final minutes.

After dominant form since starting on pole, Rast claimed victory ahead of S. van der Linde, securing a 1-2 finish for the Schubert Motorsport team.

Third place was taken by Preining who took 16 championship points, re-taking the championship lead from Bortolotti.

He occupies a 10-point lead in the standings with 190 points, against Bortolotti’s 180 after scoring no points in Race 2.

Feller finished in 15th place, and so claimed one point to take his championship points total to 159.

In fourth position was Wittmann, ahead of Preining’s Manthey EMA teammate, Dennis Olsen.

Schmid was in sixth position, the highest finishing spot out of the five participating Lamborghinis.

Ayhancan Güven took seventh place in the #24 Team75 Motorsport Porsche.

Both Emil Frey Racing Ferraris finished in eighth and ninth positions, with Aitken ahead of Thierry Vermeulen.

Arjun Maini’s #36 Team HRT Mercedes-AMG rounded out the top-10 finishers at the Red Bull Ring.

The final two races take place next month at the Hockenheimring, on 20-22 October, where a champion will be crowned.

Three-time champion Rene Rast took his record-breaking 26th DTM pole position for Schubert Motorsport ahead of his teammate Sheldon van der Linde for Race 2 at the Red Bull Ring.

Unlike yesterday’s qualifying session, drivers took to a dry track surface on slick tyres, even if the sky was overcast above the Spielberg circuit.

The fight for the DTM championship title remained close, as SSR Performance Lamborghini driver Mirko Bortolotti leads on 180 points, with rival Thomas Preining just six points behind.

Red Bull Ring is a medium-speed, engaging circuit with fewer overtaking opportunities compared to other venues, which placed emphasis on starting high up.

Preining’s objective will be to close the points gap in the race, whilst Bortolotti’s aim runs in the opposite direction, to extend his lead.

Traffic was a factor in qualifying, as 28 drivers set their best efforts around the 4.318 km configuration, whilst attempting to distance themselves from one another for their flying laps.

After 10 minutes out of 20, Thierry Vermeulen of the #69 Emil Frey Racing was at the top of the order with a 1:28.312 lap time.

The Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 package showed promising form, with three provisionally situated in the top-five, and Bortolotti putting in his quickest efforts in the final minutes.

During the closing stages, where the track evolution was at its quickest, the lap times began their descent into the 1:27 margin.

Moreover, the entirety of the top-10 drivers’ lap times resided in the 1:27 threshold which demonstrated a close fight where the gaps were separated by tenths-of-a-second.

Schubert Motorsport claimed the front row with their two BMW M4 GT3 cars, marking a strong qualifying outing for the team.

Rast took his 26th pole position with a time of 1:27.671, a record-breaking feat in the history of DTM ahead of S. van der Linde’s time of 1:27.782.

Jack Aitken finished third in his #14 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 after he set a 1:27.873.

In fourth place, Preining in his #91 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3.R completed a fastest time of 1:27.882, as fifth place was taken by Marco Wittmann’s Project 1 BMW, which laid down a 1:27.948.

Sixth position was secured by Grasser-Racing Team’s Clemens Schmid in the #63 Lamborghini, with a time of 1:27.958.

Another Lamborghini landed seventh position, as Franck Perera completed a fastest time of 1:27.960.

Ayhancan Güven’s #24 Porsche was in eighth place, with a time of 1:27.974, ahead of ninth-placed Bortolotti and his 1:27.985 time.

Dennis Olsen completed the top-10 order after his fastest time of 1:27.989 in the #90 Porsche.

Race 2 will take place later today at 12:30 pm UK time, for Round 14 on the 2023 schedule.

Laurin Heinrich of the #75 Team75 Motorsport Porsche grasped his first DTM pole position in wet conditions, ahead of the first race of the weekend at the Red Bull Ring.

A thrilling qualifying session took place at the Red Bull Ring, in Austria, where drivers qualified for their Race 1 grid positions in wet, tricky conditions.

During the dry free practice sessions, the Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO2 cars seemed to struggle, with none finishing in the top-20 in FP1, and Luca Engstler being the highest-finishing Audi in FP2 at P18.

The championship fight played a part during the 20-minute session, with overtaking expected to be a worthy challenge around the medium-fast turns of the Spielberg circuit, and thus the protagonists of Mirko Bortolotti and Thomas Preining needed to match or outqualify one another.

The former driver leads the standings on 173 points, as the latter trailed on 164, and prior to the usual allocated qualifying points to the top-three finishers (P1/pole position – three points, P2 – two points, P3 – one point).

During the early stages of the session, Toksport WRT’s Tim Heinemann set the outright fastest pace in his #9 Porsche 911 GT3.R, from a 1:38.133 lap time.

A red flag was called with under 12 minutes remaining, after David Schumacher crashed sideways into a tyre wall after slipping up on the wet track surface at Turn 2, ruling himself out of the session in his #27 Team Winward Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO2.

Bortolotti topped the order before the session was disrupted, indicating that conditions changed as lap times got quicker, after being the first to enter the 1:37 margin.

Wet tyres were still favoured as the session continued once the #27 was recovered.

During the closing stages of the session, many drivers entered the 1:37 bracket when they returned their GT3 cars to optimum running as those who experimented with the slick tyre decided to switch back to wets.

Kelvin van der Linde shot to the top of the order with a 1:36.843 lap time in his #3 ABT Sportsline Audi, showing pace in the rain-soaked conditions.

At the chequered flag, Laurin Heinrich narrowly beat van der Linde to the top spot with a 1:36.778 in his #75 Porsche.

Van der Linde finished second 0.065 seconds behind, as third was claimed by the other Team75 Motorsport Porsche of Ayhancan Güven after a 1:36.859.

Fourth place was claimed by Preining from a 1:36.594, followed by his Manthey EMA teammate of Dennis Olsen, who set a 1:36.978.

In sixth position, Maro Engel was the highest-placed Mercedes after he set a 1:36.985, followed by seventh-placed Rene Rast in his BMW M4 GT3.

His time of 1:37.010 surpassed Marco Wittmann’s #11 Project 1 BMW, which completed a lap of 1:37.016.

Luca Stolz’s #4 Team HRT Mercedes finished in ninth place from a 1:37.027 time.

Championship-leader Bortolotti rounded off the top-10, and occupied six positions behind his title rival, after his best time of 1:37.123 in the #92 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2.

Ricardo Feller attempted to qualify on slicks, and so finished in P26 out of 28 cars, setting a tall order to narrow the gap from P3 in the championship on 142 points.

Race 1 takes place later today from 12:30 pm UK time.

Thomas Preining took his second win of the year at a wet Red Bull Ring in DTM, putting himself into title contention with just two races remaining.

Preining started eighth but had pace on his rivals, moving through the field quickly as others slipped up on the wet, but drying, track. He pitted late from the lead but was able to come out ahead of leading pitstopper Luca Stolz. Preining then pulled away from Stolz, finishing over five seconds to the good.

With Stolz second, polesitter Maro Engel finished third. The wet tyres he started on dried out quickly, and he got caught by Preining amongst others. He pitted and put on slick tyres, a gamble but one which would pay off. 

He slipped back out of the points after the stop, but as the track got increasing dry he found pace over his rivals on wets, overtaking the drivers he’d previously been overtaken by to take third at the flag.

Arjun Maini finished fourth after doing the same strategy as Engel. The Indian led for a while before the stops after overtaking Engel but he also slipped back on slicks, but was able to regain the positions he lost with a late surge thanks to the slick tyres.

Philipp Eng finished fifth with Lucas Auer sixth, another slick tyre-shod car. He pitted early and put slicks on, which only started working late on, allowing him to vault himself into the points.

Maximilian Gotz finished seventh, with Nico Muller eighth and championship contender Mirko Bortolotti ninth, taking home two points on a day many rivals failed to score. Dennis Olsen rounded out the top 10.

Primary championship challengers Rene Rast finished 11th after the wet tyres he got at the pitstop dried out prematurely. He sat fifth, behind Olsen in fourth, but the slick tyre cars managed to get by and both slipped back.

Championship leader Sheldon van der Linde finished 12th and out of the points after a spin on the first lap, relegating him to the back of the field, culminating in a pointless weekend for the South African. He leads the championship by 11 points over Auer, with Rast, Preining, and Bortolotti also harbouring title hopes.

Maro Engel took pole position in a very wet and interrupted qualifying session, which saw three red flags for accidents.

Just two minutes into the session and the first red flag came out, with Mikael Grenier losing control of his Mercedes-AMG at turn 2.

The session got underway again once Grenier’s car had been recovered, with Maximillian Gotz setting the pace. However, Engel pipped him, with the two Mercedes-AMG drivers staying 1-2 for the rest of the session.

Two other red flags followed Grenier’s, with Dev Gore losing control, then Ricardo Feller beaching his car in the gravel at turn 7, with just two minutes remaining on the clock.

Nick Cassidy, the Saturday race winner, qualified third, with teammate Felipe Fraga fourth. The Brazilian will be hoping for a clean race, as he’s only finished four races this season, either through bad luck or unforced errors, and didn’t finish Saturday’s race after a clash with Feller on the first lap.

Philipp Eng will start fifth, while Sheldon van der Linde qualified sixth, but will start 14th after a grid penalty for track limits in Saturday’s race. The South African championship leader will be hoping to get into the points as he endured a point-less Saturday, seeing his lead cut to just 13 points over Rene Rast.

Arjun Maini will then start sixth but qualified seventh fastest. Thomas Preining, controversially reinstated to fifth position for Saturday’s race after an avoidable contact 10-second penalty was reversed on Saturday evening, will start seventh. 

David Schumacher will start eighth after qualifying ninth fastest, with championship challenger Rast 10th fastest, starting ninth as a result of rival S. van der Linde’s penalty.

The race will get underway 12:30 UK time.

Nick Cassidy took a dominant lights-to-flag victory in the first DTM race of the weekend at the Red Bull Ring, taking his second victory in a row.

The Kiwi retained the lead at the start and never looked back, unmatchable as his rivals couldn’t keep up behind him. Rene Rast, the quickest driver in qualifying but received a three-place grid penalty for contact, with Cassidy, at Spa last time out, finished second, getting past both Lucas Auer, who started second, and Ricardo Feller, who was third on the grid.

With championship leader Sheldon van der Linde not scoring — he finished 11th after starting 17th — this moves Rast, second in the championship, considerably closer to S. van der Linde, with 13 points now separating the two.

In third was Mirko Bortolotti, who has moved up from fifth to third in the championship, seven points behind Rast. Both Rast and Bortolotti took multiple positions on the first lap, squabbling for second early on, but neither could challenge an untouchable Cassidy.

Lucas Auer and Thomas Preining finished fourth and fifth on the road, but dropped back to ninth and tenth as a result of a 10-second penalty each. This meant Nico Muller and Kelvin van der Linde finished fourth and fifth instead, with three Mercedes-AMG drivers — Maro Engel, Maximilian Gotz, and Luca Stolz — in sixth, seventh and eighth.

Auer and Preining rounded out the top 10.

The second race of the weekend will take place tomorrow at 12:30 UK time.

Rene Rast qualified first for Saturday’s DTM race at the Red Bull Ring, but due to a three-place grid penalty incurred at Spa, he will start the race from fourth on the grid.

Instead, winner last time out, Nick Cassidy, will start on pole at the Austrian circuit. Ironically, it was Cassidy who Rast was fighting for position with at Spa, before the two made contact, with the German receiving a penalty for his actions as a result.

Rast set a 1:27.698 to go fastest on his final flying lap, beating out the Kiwi by 0.102, who had previously set his fastest lap and was on course to take pole outright, before Rast pipped him. But due to Rast’s penalty, he’ll start on pole anyway.

With Rast dropping down to fourth, Nico Muller, third-fastest in qualifying, will move up to the front row and start in second, alongside Cassidy. Ricardo Feller will start third, while Rast will be fourth on the grid as he looks to outscore his championship rival, Sheldon van der Linde, who will start 17th.

Cassidy Red Bull AlphaTauri AF Corse teammate, Felipe Fraga, will start fifth. Mirko Bortolotti, still in the running for the championship but needing a good result, qualified sixth. Alongside him will be Arjun Maini in seventh, with Lucas Auer, third in the championship, eighth on the grid.

Maximilian Gotz and Maro Engel round out the grid’s top 10 starters, in ninth and tenth respectively.

The race will start at 12:30 UK time.

Liam Lawson took the win at the second DTM race of the weekend at the Red Bull Ring, withstanding immense pressure from polesitter Marco Wittmann for over half the race.

Lawson jumped Wittmann at the pitstops with an excellent stop from the AF Corse Red Bull Ferrari team, and didn’t look back as he took his second win of the weekend. That meant, out of a possible 56 points across both qualifying sessions and the races, he took 55 points out of a possible 56.

Maximilian Götz finished third in a further boost to his championship challenge, although he drops to third in the overall standings behind Lawson.

Philip Ellis finished fourth, with Lucas Auer sixth. Championship leader Kelvin van der Linde came home sixth, although he was eighth on the road but gained two positions thanks to 5-second time penalties for Vincent Abril, who crossed the line sixth but ended up in eighth, and Daniel Juncadella, who finished seventh but got demoted to 12th.

Arjun Maini finished seventh as his DTM season continues to improve. Abril was eighth, with Maximillian Buhk ninth. Timo Glock rounded out the points in 10th.

Maximilian Paul finished 11th in his second DTM race, while Juncadella was 12th after his penalty.

Esteban Muth finished 13th, with the late-pitstopping Nico Müller 14th. Sophia Flörsch crossed the line in 15th, with Esmee Hawkey 16th.

Alex Albon finished 17th after a puncture soon after his pitstop meant he had to stop again.

Dev Gore, Sheldon van der Linde and Mike Rockenfeller retired from the race, all with mechanical issues after the safety car-free race.