Strong start at the Lausitzring: Jusuf Owega shines in the Mercedes-AMG GT3

• Mercedes-AMG junior driver sets best time in free practice
• Three cars with the star in the top five
• A hot race weekend with mid-summer temperatures awaits the teams and drivers

Klettwitz. Jusuf Owega (Cologne) enjoys a successful start to the second half of the DTM season. The Mercedes-AMG junior driver was the fastest racer in the second free practice session at the Lausitzring on Friday afternoon, with a time of 1:20.780 minutes – the best time of the day. “It was a good start, but we won’t see what the competition can really do until qualifying on Saturday. The Lausitzring suits me, the track has a lot of grip and I have always done well here. The long start-finish straight is a key section. Which is why it’s important to come out of the last turn with momentum in the infield beforehand,” said the 21-year-old.

Behind Owega, his brand colleague Lucas Auer (A) got the second-fastest lap of the day, trailing by 0.122 seconds. Franck Perera (F), winner of the first session in the morning, ended the first showdown at the start of the fifth stop of the DTM tour in Lusatia in third place in the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2. Only the top three drivers finished in under 1:21.000 minutes. The best Audi driver was Kelvin van der Linde (ZA) in fourth place. Maro Engel (Monaco) in fifth place rounded off the strong performance by Mercedes-AMG with three cars in the top five.

In third place in the first free practice session on Friday morning, Owega was already hinting that he had big plans for the Lausitzring. In the second clash at lunchtime, with track temperatures of almost 40 degrees Celsius, it looked for a long time like Auer was going to emerge as the day’s winner. But Owega pounced two and a half minutes before the end to secure the best time. The full results from both sessions are available at dtm.com.

Qualifying on Saturday gets underway at 9:05 a.m. CEST. The battle for the best spots on the grid will be streamed on ran.de. TV partner ProSieben is showing all 16 races of the season live on free-to-view television. The DTM is shown live or on catch-up TV in more than 150 territories around the world.