DTM’s second race of the weekend at the Nürburgring saw much better conditions than Saturday, meaning a dry race was the order of the day.
The race was sadly over for Dörr Motorsport’s Clemens Schmid before the green flag dropped, with a technical issue in his McLaren spoiling any hopes of a success story on his 34th birthday weekend.
Maro Engel held onto his pole from Sunday Morning qualifying, making his AMG wide enough in the opening laps to keep Ricardo Feller and Marco Wittmann at bay. Early contact in the mid-pack between yesterday’s winner Kelvin van der Linde and Luca Stolz left Stolz facing oncoming traffic, whilst Sheldon van der Linde managed to capitalise and turn 10th into 3rd place before turn 2.
Nicki Thiim also faced early drama, pulling off with a technical issue to retire the car on lap two, triggering a safety car that would stop Maro Engel from building an early gap at the front of the field.
By the green flag, Schubert Motorsport’s Sheldon van der Linde had climbed into P2 and was putting mounting pressure on Engel. The pair had an excellent battle through the first half of the lap, however Engel would hold onto the lead, sending the message that Sheldon must try harder if he’s to claim the top spot.
Further back, Mirko Bortolotti and René Rast were tustling for 6th place, and with it some all-important championship points given Bortolotti’s second position on the season standings. Contact from Rast would lead to him having to give the position back to the Lamborghini driver, alongside Thomas Preining who was ready to pounce on the opportunity.
René Rast would later manage a succesful overcut during the pit window, coming out just ahead of Maro Engel in first place. Contact into T1 would see Winward’s AMG spinning out wide, landing Rast a penalty that would later cost him the race.
Jack Aitken was also awarded a penalty, for contact with the Manthey Porsche of Thomas Preining. The two would battle for a number of laps allowing Ayhancan Güven to catch up, and later succesfully overtake them both whilst they were preoccupied coming out of the AMG Arena. The Turkish driver achieved his best result yet in DTM, with a noteworthy 4th place up from 19th on the grid.
Victory would eventually go to Sheldon van der Linde, who showed an excellent and consistent drive throughout, to be largely unchallenged in the closing stages. The rest of the top 10 were as follows;
2. Maro Engel
3. Marco Wittmann
4. Kelvin van der Linde
5. Ayhancan Güven
6. Thierry Vermeulen
7. Thomas Preining
8. Ricardo Feller
9. Mirko Bortolotti
10. Franck Perera
The victory also marks BMW’s 100th race win in DTM – an impressive statistic, however still not quite a scratch on Mercedes’ 206.
DTM heads to the Sachsenring next, on 06-08 September.
Photos by Sascha Schiwietz.
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