- Austrian, second in the table, clocks Friday’s fastest time in FP2
- Championship leader Bortolotti confirms his impressive recent form with third place
- First sessions against the clock at the Sachsenring for 21 years decided late on
Hohenstein-Ernstthal. A statement of intent from Thomas Preining (A): the Austrian, who currently lies second in the championship, was the fastest man of the day on Friday, as the DTM returned to the Sachsenring, leaving his rivals in no doubt that he is here to regain top spot in the table this weekend. The Porsche works driver won the afternoon’s second free practice session with a time of 1:18.537 minutes – the fastest lap of the day. “As a big MotoGP fan, I always like driving at the Sachsenring. I hope we can back up our performance from practice when it comes to qualifying on Saturday. However, we have often seen this season that the pole-sitter has not necessarily been right up there in the preceding free practice. Despite this, the first indications give me cause for optimism,” said the 25-year-old, adding a brief analysis of the track: “The Sachsenring has a lot of peculiarities. It is a lot more undulating than other DTM tracks. Plus, you have some blind corners, which demand a lot of courage from us drivers. It is a real old-school circuit, which is great fun.”
Kelvin van der Linde (ZA), in an Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo2 for Abt Sportsline, was the fastest man in the opening session on Friday morning. However, he ended the day 0.041 seconds slower than the Austrian. Championship leader Mirko Bortolotti (I) from SSR Performance confirmed his fine form, setting exactly the same time as van der Linde in FP1. However, the Lamborghini works driver clocked his fastest time later than the South African and was thus classified in third place at the end of the day. Ayhancan Güven (TR) steered another Porsche 911 GT3 R to fourth place. The top Mercedes-AMG driver was Maro Engel (Monaco), who was fifth fastest in the “Mamba” of Mercedes-AMG Team Mann-Filter.
The first appearance of DTM cars at the Sachsenring for 21 years saw both sessions decided late on. In the morning, the top two drivers Kelvin van der Linde and Bortolotti set their fastest times on their 18th laps. In the afternoon, Preining clocked the fastest time of the day on his 20th lap in slightly higher temperatures of 28 degrees Celsius. The full results of both free practice sessions can be found at
dtm.com/en/results.
Saturday’s qualifying gets underway at 09:05. The battle for the best grid positions will be streamed live at
ran.de. TV partner ProSieben is showing all 16 of this season’s races live on free-to-air TV. The DTM is broadcast live or replayed in full in over 150 territories around the world.