Fastest in practice – Clear statement from Bortolotti in DTM title race

“We are ideally prepared for the weekend, even if Friday is not so significant in the DTM. After this morning’s rain, it was important to be able to do a few laps on a dry track in the second session,” said the Vienna resident after his impressive display. Thomas Preining (A) from Manthey EMA was second fastest in his Porsche 911 GT3 R, 0.221 seconds slower than Bortolotti. Preining’s team-mate Ayhancan Güven (TR) was third. Nicki Thiim (DK) steered the SSR Performance team’s second Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 to fourth place. Rounding out the top five was Thierry Vermeulen (NL) from Emil Frey Racing in a Ferrari 296 GT3.

Free practice 2 took place on Friday afternoon with temperatures around 15 degrees Celsius and a virtually dry track, and was significantly faster than in the wet conditions that greeted the drivers in the first session at the iconic 4.574-kilometre circuit. Despite this, the teams started cautiously and, with mixed conditions at the start of the session, each sent one driver out on slicks and their team-mate on wet-weather tyres. However, after just a few laps all the drivers switched to the Pirelli slicks and the pursuit of fast lap times began. René Rast (Bregenz) from Schubert Motorsport was the first to crack the 1:40-minute barrier in a BMW M4 GT3. Shortly after, Vermeulen moved to the top of the timings sheet with a 1:38.989-minute lap. Just a few moments later, Preining bettered that time by more than half a second, and looked set to end the day as the fastest driver. However, Bortolotti ultimately set the fastest time on his 18th lap. Kelvin van der Linde (ZA), who currently lies second in the championship, had to settle for 14th place in an Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo2 run by Abt Sportsline. However, he remained upbeat. “The conditions were very mixed today. With this in mind, I don’t think you can really read too much into the results of practice. We want to win both races. The most important thing is for me to finish ahead of Mirko Bortolotti twice.” The third-placed man in the table, Maro Engel (Monaco) from Mercedes-AMG Team Winward, was only a little faster in 13th place.