Toksport Porsche’s Christian Engelhart won the second DTM race of the season at Oschersleben, after starting seventh on the grid and jumping his rivals at the pitstops.
He was able to take the lead over polesitter Manthey Porsche’s Thomas Prening, who led the first half of the race, and Engelhart’s teammate Tim Heinemann, who started second but dropped behind Clemens Schmid at the start of the race.
Preining led until the stops, then pitted and exited with a healthy lead in front of Engelhart and Heinemann. However, a safety car to recover the stricken, broken down Audi of Kelvin van der Linde bunched the field up, giving the Germans a sniff of victory over the Austrian Preining.
Prening then had to take a penalty lap, losing him around five seconds, for a pitstop infringement by his Manthey team. Engelhart didn’t need asking twice to take the lead, with Heinemann following him through to take his second podium in only his second DTM race, making it a Toksport 1-2.
Preining followed through in third, no doubt frustrated but happy to take important points in what is expected to be a competitive DTM season.
Preining’s teammate Dennis Olsen finished fourth, giving Porsche a 1-2-3-4. The Norweigan was there or thereabouts in the race, but wasn’t quite able to challenge for the podium positions.
GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini’s Schmid took fifth in the race after running as high as second early on, after managing to overtake Heinemann at the first corner. He steadily dropped back, however, as the dominant Porsches were able to use their superior speed to pit early and undercut Schmid and take the podium positions.
Mirko Bortolotti took sixth for SSR Performance Lamborghini, but may be slightly disappointed after starting fourth and not having the success ballast that his teammate, Franck Perera got handed after winning yesterday’s race. However, like Schmid, Bortolotti’s Lamborghini was outclassed by the dominant Porsches at Oschersleben.
Abt Sportsline Audi’s Ricardo Feller came home seventh, with Jusuf Owega finishing eighth for Landgraf Mercedes-AMG. Laurin Heinrich and Lucas Auer rounded out the top 10 in ninth and 10th for Team Bernhard Porsche and Winward Mercedes-AMG.
