The Prancing Horse was unstoppable at the Nürburgring on Saturday: Emil Frey Ferrari driver Matteo Cairoli celebrates his third win of the season in a crazy race in which only twelve cars even saw the chequered flag, also taking an important step forward in the overall standings.
"This win was really important," Cairoli, who had two bad weekends at the Norisring and Oschersleben, said happily on the official DTM stream. "But today, honestly, it is a pleasure to drive a car like this. I really enjoyed it and had fun. A big thank you goes to the team, because without them I wouldn't be here."
Behind the Ferrari driver, who ultimately carried a dominant advantage of more than ten seconds across the finish line, Thomas Preining (Manthey-Porsche) in second and Marco Wittmann (Schubert-BMW) in third completed the podium. "We are really pleased," the two-time DTM champion cheered after the podium ceremony.
Strong performance from Maro Engel despite success weight
"We had been right up there all weekend," Wittmann recalled. "We had hoped that we could annoy the first two a little bit, but they were simply too fast for that; we had to look more a little bit behind us. For us, third place was the maximum today and, accordingly, we are also very satisfied."
Ben Dörr (Dörr-McLaren) finished fourth, followed by Lucas Auer (Landgraf-Mercedes) and championship leader Maro Engel, who was running 20 kilograms of success ballast from Oschersleben in his Winward-AMG. Team-mate Jules Gounon crossed the line in seventh, although the Frenchman may still face a retrospective penalty.
Gounon had collided with Ricardo Feller after the pit stop. The Manthey-Porsche driver spun off the track and made light contact with the barriers, but was able to continue and ultimately still bring ninth place across the line. Luca Engstler (Abt-Lamborghini) finished eighth, with Bastian Buus (Land-Porsche) completing the top 10.
Opening phase with numerous battles and retirements
Matteo Cairoli immediately converted his pole position into the lead at the start, followed by Preining in the "Grello" Porsche. Behind them, AMG driver Auer had a disappointing opening: he had to let Dörr and Wittmann go and dropped from third on the grid to fifth over the course of the opening lap.
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Kelvin van der Linde (Schubert-BMW) had to go through the penalty lap once because of an apparent jump start and also fell back. Nicki Thiim and Mirko Bortolotti (Grasser-Lamborghini) both went skating through the gravel bed during the opening lap, after which the Italian had to park his car early.
"Mirko didn't have a particularly good start; he had two collisions in which two cars pushed him off the track," team boss Gottfried Grasser explained on the official DTM stream. "And unfortunately we think the front radiator is completely blocked with dirt and the water temperature rose far too much, so we had to stop."
Shortly afterwards, Marco Mapelli (Abt-Lamborghini) spun off the track after a shove from Timo Glock (Dörr-McLaren). Race control took a closer look at the incident and handed the former Formula 1 driver three penalty laps. Glock also parked his McLaren early after serving the penalty.
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Meanwhile, the duels continued in the midfield: Thiim and Tom Kalender (Landgraf-Mercedes) came together in the chicane area and both shot straight on. For the youngster, the race was then over because his exhaust was damaged. Thiim, meanwhile, had to pay for the contact with a penalty lap.
McLaren driver Dörr loses possible podium at the pit stop
At the front, everything remained unchanged until the pit-stop window opened: Cairoli led from Preining and Dörr, while Wittmann defended his fourth place against Auer. At the first opportunity, the two rivals came straight in for their stops. Behind them, the other drivers lined up, with no changes taking place.
Dörr came in one lap later, although the stop at the Dörr team did not go entirely smoothly. The McLaren Junior rejoined the track just ahead of Wittmann, but was unable to defend his third position against the BMW driver. Cairoli was the last driver from the lead group to stop and retained the lead ahead of Preining and the new third-placed driver Wittmann.
In the closing stages, as thick smoke from the Eifel forest fires settled over the Nürburgring, everything remained unchanged at the front. Kelvin van der Linde had to park his Schubert-BMW with a defect. A later collision between Christian Engelhart (Grasser-Lamborghini) and Thierry Vermeulen (Emil-Frey-Ferrari) also ensured that only twelve cars in total saw the chequered flag.
Maro Engel defends DTM championship lead
Arjun Maini and Finn Wiebelhaus were done after just a few laps. Both drivers had to serve a drive-through penalty at the start of the race because HRT had breached the testing regulations ahead of the race. Because a points-scoring result was hardly possible, the team probably saved the tyres for Sunday.
Winward-Mercedes driver Maro Engel defends his lead in the overall DTM standings, although Thomas Preining (Manthey-Porsche) has reduced his deficit to 17 points. Race winner Cairoli is now in fifth place with 123 points, keeping alive his remaining title chance.
"Of course I want to take the opportunity when it presents itself. And today that was exactly the case," Cairoli remained optimistic. "So I am very happy. Tomorrow we have another chance, and of course I would also like to score an important result then."
The second DTM race at the Nürburgring takes place on Sunday (from 13:30), with temperatures set to be lower than on Saturday and, depending on the weather model, even a small chance of rain. The starting positions will be decided beforehand in qualifying (from 9:10).
