DTM - Nico Müller claims victory at Portimão ; Loeb 18th

It was Müller all the way in the second DTM race of the 2022 season! Swiss Nico Müller scored the eleventh race win of his DTM career at Portimão on Sunday. The 30-year-old finished ahead of Felipe Fraga with the Red Bull AF Corse Ferrari. The Brazilian won the Autohero Fastest Lap Award by virtue of his lap time of 1'41''681 and therefore scored an additional championship point. Mirko Bortolotti finished third once again with the GRT Lamborghini. In the overall standings, the Italian is leading with 35 points from Müller (28 points) and Lucas Auer (26 points). 

Having already been fastest during qualifying in the morning, Müller consequently defended his lead at the start of the race against Bortolotti. The runner-up of 2019 and 2020 was delighted with his first DTM race win since November 2020 at Hockenheim. “I am just very happy, we have worked so hard for this. We know how tough this championship is this year, so that is making us even happier for having achieved this victory.”

In the second race at the Algarve, the 29 top-notch drivers again provided motorsport entertainment at its best including numerous overtaking manoeuvres. Among those who made up ground in the race were  Walkenhorst BMW driver Marco Wittmann, who moved up from seventh to fourth place, and defending champion Maximilian Götz, who had started from tenth place with the Winward Mercedes-AMG and ended up fifth, followed by Kelvin van der Linde with the Team ABT Sportsline Audi. The best-placed Porsche driver was Belgian Laurens Vanthoor for SSR Performance in seventh. The previous day’s race winner had bad luck: Lucas Auer had to come into the pits once again only one lap after his mandatory pit stop and finished in 22nd place.

Rally icon Sébastien Loeb finished in 18th place with the AlphaTauri AF Corse Ferrari. Three places ahead of him was David Schumacher (Winward Mercedes-AMG), who led for a long time by virtue of a long first stint and eventually made up nine places, advancing from 24th on the grid to finish 15th.

After a pair of third-place finishes, points’ leader Bortolotti drew a positive verdict from the opening weekend: “Yesterday felt like defeat, but today feels a bit like victory. It was a hard-fought race, no doubt. Now, I am really looking forward to Lausitzring. The track was always good for me in the past years, although the DTM version is even more challenging with Turn 1.”

The 2022 DTM season includes 16 races, the next two races will be held from 20 till 22 May.

Results of Race 2 :