DTM Zandvoort: Dominant Engel scores first win since 2017

Having set the pace in both practice sessions on Friday and also taken pole position in the opening qualifying of the weekend, Engel was again untouchable in his Landgraf Mercedes as he scored an emphatic six-second win over reigning champion Sheldon van der Linde.

It marked Engel’s first win in the DTM since Moscow in 2017 and represented a major turnaround for Mercedes as a manufacturer after its quartet of cars struggled for top-line results at Oschersleben last month.

At the start of the race, Engel pulled away cleanly from pole position while van der Linde came under pressure from fellow BMW driver Marco Wittmann in the battle for second.

It was a matter of laps before Engel extended his lead to over a second, with his advantage growing to well over five seconds when the pitlane opened after the first 20 minutes of racing.

Engel headed to the pits for his mandatory stop on lap 19 and returned on track with his lead intact, with van der Linde having not been able to make any dent to his advantage by pitting a lap earlier.

From there on, Engel could cruise to the finish line, with his winning margin the largest seen in the DTM since the penultimate race of the 2021 season at the Norisring.

Schubert BMW driver van der Linde had no answer to Engel’s pace but was able to secure a first podium of the season in second, having successfully resisted the advances of Wittmann for the entirety of the first stint.

SSR Performance Lamborghini driver Franck Perera followed van der Linde into the pits on lap 18 and it allowed him to get the jump on both Wittmann and team-mate Mirko Bortolotti and secure the final spot on the rostrum.

Wittmann, who appeared on course for a podium before the pitstops, eventually ended up a disappointing fifth after losing a place to SSR’s Bortolotti on cold tyres after his pitstop.

The two-time champion spent the second half of the race trying to regain fourth position and attempted several moves into Turn 1, but ultimately conceded defeat as he finished 0.380s behind the Italian at the chequered flag.

Winward Mercedes driver Lucas Auer rebounded from an average qualifying session that left him 12th on the grid to finish sixth in the race, having made a rapid start to jump to ninth on the opening lap before making further in-roads during the pitstop phase.

Auer led the Manthey EMA of Thomas Preining to the finish, the latter making the most of an early pitstop to end up as the best Porsche in seventh.

Emil Frey Ferrari debutant Albert Costa put in a solid drive as a substitute for Jack Aitken, passing the Landgraf Mercedes of Jusuf Owega en route to eighth.

Owega was also passed by Dries Vanthoor, another driver making his debut this weekend as he replaced three-time DTM champion Rene Rast at Schubert BMW.

Behind Owega in 10th, Luca Stolz finished 11th for HRT Mercedes, just holding off the top Audi of Abt driver Kelvin van der Linde to the finish line.

Van der Linde had made a rapid start from eighth on the grid to run fifth in the early stages of the race, but dropped outside of the top 10 after picking up a long-lap penalty for incorrect position on the starting grid.

He was followed by the Bernhard Porsche of Bernhard driver Ayhancan Guven, as Audi duo Luca Engstler (Team Engstler) and Ricardo Feller (Abt) completed the points scorers in 14th and 15th respectively.

Toksport WRT’s Tim Heinemann, who came into the weekend as the championship leader after a double podium at Oschersleben, finished a distant 19th.

Race 1 results:

Cla	#	Driver	Car	Time
1	48	Maro Engel	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo
2	1	Sheldon Van Der Linde	BMW M4 GT3	6.000
3	94	Frank Perera	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	0.528
4	92	Mirko Bortolotti	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	1.166
5	11	Marco Wittmann	BMW M4 GT3	0.380
6	22	Lucas Auer	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	3.477
7	91	Thomas Preining	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	0.645
8	14	Jack Aitken	Ferrari 296 GT3	2.663
9	33	René Rast	BMW M4 GT3	9.356
10	84	Jusuf Owega	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	3.395
11	4	Luca Stolz	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	1.896
12	3	Kelvin van der Linde	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	0.081
13	24	Ayhancan Güven	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	0.731
14	8	Luca Engstler	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	1.539
15	7	Ricardo Feller	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	0.356
16	90	Dennis Olsen	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	0.585
17	36	Arjun Maini	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	0.906
18	40	Mattia Drudi	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	0.599
19	9	Tim Heinemann	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	0.652
20	83	Patric Niederhauser	Audi R8 LMS Evo II	0.377
21	63	Clemens Schmid	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	1.656
22	19	Mick Wishofer	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	7.873
23	99	Christian Engelhart	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	17.613
24	6	Alessio Deledda	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	1 lap
25	69	Thierry Vermeulen	Ferrari 296 GT3	13 laps
26	75	Laurin Heinrich	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	23 laps
27	27	David Schumacher	Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	2'11.014
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