One-two at home event: Manthey Porsche lead the way in practice

• Preining sets fastest time at the Nürburgring, ahead of team-mate Feller
• BMW duo of van der Linde and Wittmann in third and fourth place
• DTM enters business end of season in the Eifel region

Nürburg. The Manthey team enjoyed a perfect start to its home event at the Nürburgring: Thomas Preining (A) set the fastest lap time of 1:25.517 minutes in practice on Friday. His team-mate Ricardo Feller (CH) was second in a Porsche 911 GT3 R, 0.249 seconds slower than the Austrian. "The home event at the Nürburgring is very special for us. We have had a few podiums here, but have not quite managed to get a win yet. We are now hungry to finally pick up that first home victory for the Grello," said Preining. Behind the two 911s were the BMW duo from Schubert Motorsport. Kelvin van der Linde (ZA) was third fastest, ahead of his team-mate Marco Wittmann (Fürth) in fourth. Fifth place went to Nicki Thiim (DK/Comtoyou Racing) in an Aston Martin Vantage GT3. Championship leader Maro Engel (Monaco) was 14th in his Mercedes-AMG GT3.

Faced with temperatures around 34 degrees Celsius, the teams used Free Practice 1 on Friday morning to configure their cars for the sprint variant of the Eifel circuit, as well practicing their pit stops. The morning's best time came courtesy of Matteo Cairoli (I/Emil Frey Racing), who stopped the clock at 1:26.144 minutes: "That was a good start to the weekend, particularly after the difficult race weekends we have had recently in Oschersleben and at the Norisring. I hope we can challenge at the very front here," said the Ferrari driver. Looking ahead to the weekend, Cairoli added: "You can hardly afford to make any mistakes at the Nürburgring. There is quite a lot of rubber from tyre wear if you stray from the racing line. If you pick that up, it can cost you quite a bit of time, particularly in qualifying. The high temperatures obviously don't help. However, as an Italian, I am used to it."

For much of the afternoon session, which proved to be the faster of the two, van der Linde topped the standings with a time of 1:25.834 minutes. Shortly before the end of the session, the Manthey Porsche duo turned up the heat and produced an exciting battle for top spot. Preining was first to take the lead, before being trumped by Feller just a few seconds later. The 28-year-old Austrian eventually clocked the fastest time of the day on his final lap.

The first qualifying session at the Nürburgring begins at 09:55 on Saturday. Fans can follow the race against the clock in a livestream on ran.de. The two races will also be streamed live and free of charge on Joyn, ServusTV On and the YouTube channel @DTM.

All results from the Nürburgring can be found at dtm.com/en/results.