In an exhilarating Sunday race at Oschersleben, Ayhancan Guven celebrated his first victory – and the first-ever DTM win by a Turkish driver. The Manthey-Porsche driver triumphed due to an ideal technique that vaulted him to the entrance after the primary of two necessary pitstops.
“Already in my first 12 months, I used to be instantly combating for victories and the championship title,” recalled the 27-year-old, who has been competing within the DTM since 2023. “However final 12 months, success merely wouldn’t come. That was notably painful for me as a result of I at all times knew I had the potential. But in motorsport, solely outcomes matter.
“There isn’t a must apologize or make excuses. To be sincere, that was very irritating. However the one answer was to work onerous. Due to my workforce, the place we’ve a very good environment and the place we drivers obtain glorious help, we have been in a position to repeatedly enhance.”
Polesitter Jules Gounon secured second place within the Winward-Mercedes, adopted by Thomas Preining, who accomplished a double podium end for Manthey. New DTM chief Jordan Pepper (Grasser-Lamborghini) narrowly missed out on the highest three.
Jules Gounon
Foto: circuitpics.de
Rene Rast and Marco Wittmann gave the Schubert workforce motive to have a good time at their residence race with fifth and sixth positions. Luca Engstler (Grasser-Lamborghini) completed seventh, whereas Ben Doerr impressed with a robust eighth-place end within the Doerr-McLaren.
DTM champion Mirko Bortolotti (Abt-Lamborghini) and Saturday’s race winner Lucas Auer (Landgraf-Mercedes) accomplished the highest ten. Land-Audi driver Ricardo Feller needed to accept eleventh general.
Security automobile deployed after Aston Martin crash
In contrast to the largely orderly race on Saturday, the beginning on Sunday was considerably extra turbulent. Whereas Gounon transformed his pole place into an early lead, adopted by Pepper and Güven, intense battles developed within the midfield.
Maro Engel was compelled off monitor by fellow Mercedes driver Lucas Auer early on and was subsequently hit from the rear by Mirko Bortolotti. In consequence, smoke briefly emanated from Engel’s Mercedes-AMG GT3.
Afterwards, Engel might now not preserve tempo with the main group and shortly misplaced contact with the highest 10. Auer’s manoeuvre had penalties as nicely: following the race director’s instruction, he needed to let Engel – and thus Bortolotti and Rast too – via, which dropped him again considerably.
Lucas Auer
Foto: ADAC Motorsport
An accident involving Nicolas Baert (Comtoyou-Aston Martin) had beforehand triggered a security automobile intervention, when Baert went off the monitor and crashed into the tire boundaries. The following restart proceeded with out additional incident, and Auer instantly seized the chance to make his first necessary pitstop.
Engel adopted go well with one lap later and managed to get again forward of Mercedes colleague Auer, regardless of neither cease being easy.
Pitstops reshuffle the order
On the entrance of the sphere, Jordan Pepper got here in a single lap sooner than chief Gounon, however the Mercedes pitcrew carried out to perfection, permitting the Frenchman to defend his place towards the Grasser-Lamborghini.
Nonetheless, Gounon did not retain the lead, with Guven and Rast making the overcut technique work.
Jordan Peppe
Foto: circuitpics.de
Again on monitor, Rast’s misfortune continued. On chilly tires, he was unable to fend off charging Thomas Preining, who was on brisker rubber. The Manthey driver quickly overtook Pepper as nicely and began chasing Gounon.
Though Preining considerably elevated the strain on Gounon and even briefly pulled alongside him after slight contact, he finally was unable to make a transfer stick. Gounon efficiently defended second place till the end line.
“It’s an amazing outcome, I’m tremendous glad,” Preining informed ProSieben. “It was a troublesome qualifying session on our aspect of the storage, we couldn’t put collectively a very good lap. Subsequently, ending third is harm limitation – and I feel it’s a unbelievable day.”
For DTM returnee Timo Glock, the weekend proved disappointing. Driving for Doerr-McLaren, he remained caught in the back of the sphere from the start and needed to retire midway via the race as a consequence of technical points. A number of collisions, notably with Tom Kalender (Landgraf-Mercedes), had severely broken his automobile.
Timo Glock
Foto: Markus Toppmöller
“For us, ending the race was not an choice as a result of the automobile was merely undriveable,” Glock informed with ProSieben. “You might be combating with blunt weapons to such an extent that it is not sensible to proceed.”
Along with Glock, Nicki Thiim additionally needed to retire his Abt-Lamborghini after a tire failure made it unattainable to proceed.
Jordan Pepper now leads the general DTM standings. “These have been the primary two of 16 races. The championship will probably be lengthy this 12 months,” the South African warned. “Nevertheless it was a great weekend.”
On the subsequent spherical on the Lausitzring (24-25 Might), the Grasser-Lamborghini driver will hunted by his friends.
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