Felipe Fraga will start the second race of the DTM at the Norisring on pole position just ahead of the Lamborghini of Mirko Bortolotti who took the top time in group B but missed the top spot by a fraction of a second. Marco Wittman starts from P3.
DTM NORISRING | RACE 1 REPORT | QUALIFYING 2 REPORT | RACE 2 REPORT
Group B was the first out on track as the grid was split in two for qualifying on the short Norisring circuit. Lucas Auer held the top spot for the open minutes of the 20 minute session but it was Mirko Bortolotti in the #63 GRT Lamborghini who was the first to drop below the 50 second mark, placing a time of 49.998 to take pole. It didn’t last long and almost immediately Denis Olsen in the #94 SSR Performance Porsche knocked Bortolotti off the top
Turkish driver Ayhancan Guven was the first to react and it looked like the session would be a fight to the death between the #37 Red Bull Alpha Tauri Ferrari of Guven and Olsen as the pair traded fastest times.
Bortolotti wasn’t out of the fight and with less than 3 minutes remaining he took P1 with the first lap under 49 seconds. Clocking a time of 48.785 Bortolotti held the position to the end with Guven taking second and Maximillian Götz.making a late push to take P3 from Olsen with a time of 48.995 from the Mercedes AMG Team Winward Racing driver.
When group A took to the track it was Felipe Fraga in the #74 Red Bull AF Corse Ferrari that held the top spot for much of the session but in the final few minutes the #24 KUS Team Bernhard Porsche of Thomas Preining took P1 with a lap of 48.977.
With 2 minutes of the session remaining the times started to fall with purple sectors appearing across the board. The first of these was from the #11 Walkenhorst BMW of Marco Wittmann who took the top spot with a 48.900 lap which he improved on the next lap registering a time of 48.891.
Felipe Fraga immediately beat that with a 48.861 lap which Wittmann was unable to improve on. Thomas Preining took a purple sector and personal best but was also unable to improve his time taking third place behind Wittmann. The only other major improvement at the top came from the #33 Team ABT Audi of René Rast who with two personal best sectors jumped from P6 to P4.
Race 2 of the DTM at the Norisring takes place at 13:30 CET.
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