Rast Earns First BMW Win In Race 2

Schubert Motorsort’s René Rast cleaned up at the Red Bull Ring in the second race of the weekend, from pole position, the three-time DTM champion claiming his 26th DTM victory also his first for BMW.

“First the pole position and then my first win for BMW – that was a perfect outing for us. Maybe the imminent birth of my son might provide another highlight. I will put a big ring round this day in my calendar.

“My lead may have made it look easy from the outside, but you have to remain focused all the time, in order to avoid making any mistakes,” said the delighted father-to-be, who left to be with his heavily pregnant wife immediately after the podium ceremony.

His teammate Sheldon van der Linde finished just 1.263 seconds behind. However, despite this good result, he now only really has a mathematical chance of successfully defending his title.

It is a very different story for Porsche driver Thomas Preining, who regained the lead in the Drivers’ Championship thanks to a third place finish in his home race.

As such, a three-way battle for the title awaits fans at the finale at the Hockenheimring next month. Preining, Lamborghini works driver Mirko Bortolotti and Audi driver Ricardo Feller are all in with a chance.

The 14th race of the DTM season was far quieter than the hectic race on Saturday.

Pole-sitter Rast retained his lead at the start, ahead of Sheldon van der Linde. As the race progressed, the Schubert Motorsport duo was able to open a small gap ahead of the rest of the field. Manthey EMA driver Preining followed in third, ahead of Clemens Schmid in a Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 and BMW racer Marco Wittmann from Project 1.

The loser in the early stages was SSR Performance’s Bortolotti, who led the championship coming into the race. The 33-year-old started from ninth on the grid and fell back more than half a lap following a puncture. Bortolotti eventually ended the race in 21st place. The Italian now lies second in the championship and trails Preining by ten points with two races to come.

The top drivers came in late for their mandatory pit stops, in order to be able to react, as the first drops of rain started to fall. However, it turned out to be nothing more than a light drizzle, which did not make a big difference to the track conditions. As such, all the cars returned to the track on slicks.

The leading trio of Rast, Sheldon van der Linde and Preining impressed with fast tyre changes and comfortably held onto the three podium positions through to the finish.

Wittmann climbed into fourth place, and Dennis Olsen came home fifth in his Porsche 911 GT3 R after 41 laps of racing.

Local favourite Schmid from GRT Grasser-Racing-Team, which is based in the Austrian town of St. Margarethen, finished sixth, ahead of another Porsche 911 GT3 R with Ayhancan Güven at the wheel.

He was followed by Emil Frey Racing’s duo of Jack Aitken and Thierry Vermeulen in in places eighth and ninth. Arjun Maini was the fastest Mercedes-AMG driver in tenth place.

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Image courtesy of ADAC