SPIELBERG, Austria — Mirko Bortolotti has rediscovered his winning gene at the right time in DTM.
After a tactically and drivingly mature performance, the Lamborghini factory driver from SSR Performance celebrated his first victory of the season on Saturday at the Red Bull Ring in Austria and took the lead in the overall standings.
The event was broadcast LIVE by SPEED SPORT 1.Â
“That was probably the best victory of my life,” said Bortolotti. “We made the right decision and opted for rain tires at the beginning. I knew that if I was clever and kept the tires in a good window for a long time, I could open up a gap. I managed that.”
Maro Engel from the Mercedes-AMG Team Winward was waved off in second place after 38 laps. The third-placed driver is therefore 12 points behind Bortolotti and remains a hot candidate in the title fight. Polesitter Arjun Maini secured third place on the podium in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 from the Mercedes-AMG Team HRT.
“When you’re on the podium in the DTM, you can’t be too disappointed,” Engel said. “I would have liked to win, but Mirko Bortolotti had much more grip at the time of our duel. I’ll attack again on Sunday. Then some drivers who finished further back this time will certainly show their speed.”
In light drizzle on Saturday afternoon, almost all drivers started the fourth-to-last DTM race of the season on the Alpine circuit with rain tires. Shortly after the start, Engel was able to overtake polesitter Maini, with Bortolotti taking third place behind him.
Lamborghini driver Maximilian Paul and Luca Stolz from the Mercedes-AMG Team HRT followed in fourth and fifth place. Then the Bortolotti show began: the Italian overtook Maini and Engel and took the lead on lap seven. The Viennese-by-choice then sped away from the field and extended his lead to over eight seconds at times. As the race progressed, the light rain stopped and the track dried out. The drivers therefore switched to Pirelli slicks right at the start of the pit stop window.
After consistently short downtimes for tire changes, the order of the leading trio of Bortolotti, Engel and Maini remained unchanged. Behind them, Clemens Schmid surprisingly returned to the track in fourth place in the McLaren 720S GT3 Evo from Dörr Motorsport. The local hero had started from 19th position as the only driver on slicks and had made up a lot of ground on increasingly dry asphalt.
However, the Austrian fell far behind as the race progressed due to a tire pressure that was too high. At the front, Bortolotti’s lead melted away lap after lap, at times being less than a second over Engel. But the Italian showed no nerves and, after a controlled drive, brought home his fourth DTM victory safely. Behind Engel and Maini, Stolz completed the Mercedes trio in fourth place, Ayhancan Güven was able to gain a total of seven positions and drove the Porsche 911 GT3 R from the Manthey EMA team to fifth place after a strong performance.
Maximilian Paul, who started the race from second place, finished sixth after a mediocre start, while Lucas Auer from the Mercedes-AMG Team Mann-Filter was seventh as the best Austrian at his home race. Kelvin van der Linde from the Abts Sportsline team showed a strong fighting performance.
The overall leader up to that point improved from 17th to eighth place after some spectacular overtaking maneuvers and is now ten points behind Bortolotti in the table. René Rast finished ninth in the BMW M4 GT3 from Schubert Motorsport, while Audi driver Ricardo Feller finished the race in 10th place.