DTM - Auer is the first winner of 2022 ; Loeb 16th (+ Highlights)

Lucas Auer is the first race winner of the 2022 DTM season! At the Algarve roller-coaster in Portimão, the Austrian was victorious with the Mercedes-AMG from German Luca Stolz with the HRT Mercedes-AMG and Italian Mirko Bortolotti with the GRT Lamborghini. Kelvin van der Linde (RSA, Team ABT Sportsline) ended up as the best-placed Audi driver, Norwegian Dennis Olsen finished in fifth place with SSR Performance on his DTM debut with Porsche. The best-placed BMW driver was Schubert Motorsport’s Sheldon van der Linde, who came seventh.

“I am overjoyed,” race winner Auer delighted. “We had a good strategy, tat was the key today. I had a bit of luck at the restart, but that is racing.” Auer had benefited from a restart after 21 laps.

For a long time, Bortolotti looked safe for the race win. In the morning, the Italian had claimed pole position with the Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini and also led the field in the race for a long time. However, a safety car intervention following a retirement by is tammate Rolf Ineichen for technical reasons bunched up the field again. At the restart, Bortolotti had troubles and had to let Auer, Stolz and Maro Engel pull away. Bortolotti: “At the restart, I simply didn’t have any power. I don’t have a clue what happened, I never had that before.” 

Eventually, Bortolotti still secured a podium slot following an entertaining duel with Engel over many laps. Kelvin van der Linde finished directly behind him. The ABT Audi driver had started from 17th place, benefited from a strong strategy and stayed out of troubles at the restart, somethin René Rast (Audi / Team ABT) and Felipe Fraga (Red Bull Alpha Tauri AF Corse / Ferrari), didn’t manage; they both retired after contact. Rally icon Sébastien Loeb (Red Bull AlphaTauri AF Corse / Ferrari) ended up 16th, David Schumacher (Mercedes-AMG Team Winward) concluded his DTM debut in 20th place.

With a lap time of 1m 41.154s, Luca Stolz won the Autohero Fastest Lap award and secured an additional championship point.

After the exciting season-opening tace, the 29 drivers from the top-class field in DTM will again be pulling all the plugs on Sunday. Then, the second race of the season is on at Portimão from 1.30pm CEST.

All the results are available here

The highlights of Race 1 below :