Thomas Preining is dethroned. After a disappointing twelfth place on Saturday, the 26-year-old was able to brighten up the Spielberg weekend with a podium finish on Sunday. However, the mission to defend the title still failed.
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The reigning DTM champion is 61 points short of leading Viennese Mirko Bortolotti before the final two races in three weeks at the Hockenheimring. This means winning the title again is mathematically out of reach because you can score a maximum of 56 points in one weekend.
Two “home wins” in Spielberg
While Preining struggled with a failed qualifying on Saturday, only started the race from the penultimate starting position – 19th – and finally fought his way up to twelfth place, Bortolotti won the race. It was the first win of the season for the Viennese, who drives with an Italian license. The Lamborghini driver from the SSR Performance Team is 15 points ahead of the South African Kelvin Van der Linde and 20 points ahead of Maro Engel in the table. Interesting: Bortolotti has already scored 17 points this season through top placings in qualifying. Based solely on the race results, the Viennese would now be six points ahead of Van der Linde.
Behind him in the overall ranking is Rene Rast in fourth place – but he is already 57 points behind, which means that the BMW driver also has to end his title dream. The native of Bregenz was able to secure victory in the second race at the Red Bull Ring on Sunday from third place on the grid. 67 hundredths of a second ahead of Thomas Preining, who is also in fifth place in the overall table behind the three-time champion.
The Tyrolean Lucas Auer retired on Sunday in his Mercedes with a puncture after finishing seventh in the first race. Compatriot Clemens Schmid finished 15th in both races.
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Bortolotti took the DTM lead with Spielberg’s victory, Preining twelfth
Source: Nachrichten
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