Thomas Preining had already marked himself out as a future champion during his rookie DTM season in 2022 with the single-car Team Bernhard operation. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he delivered on that promise in his sophomore campaign this year after being given a plum seat at the Manthey EMA squad.
While his pace in the Porsche 911 GT3-R was obvious, his consistency ultimately won him the title: he finished all 16 races inside the points, including 11 in the top five. A double victory at the Hockenheim finale, against an in-form Mirko Bortolotti, proved beyond any doubt that the 25-year-old Austrian was a deserving winner.
How Preining got the better of Bortolotti in DTM title fight
The 33-point winning margin for Preining doesn’t quite encapsulate the intensity of the 2023 season, as the championship battle swung back and forth between him and his SSR Lamborghini counterpart Bortolotti. But while Bortolotti’s results fluctuated throughout the year, Preining was always there or thereabouts, as he led Porsche to an incredible title treble in only its second full season in the category.
The Austrian was up to speed from the outset and would have been victorious in the second race at Oschersleben had his Manthey EMA team not been penalised for briefly leaving a tyre in the pitlane. The bizarre rule was changed before the following round at Zandvoort, where Preining bagged another podium finish to take the points lead. But it was at the Norisring where he really shone.
Having got his pitstop out of the way early, Preining displayed stunning pace on fresh tyres and overtook Schubert BMW duo Sheldon van der Linde and Rene Rast to score victory at the DTM’s most prestigious event.
At this stage of the season, Bortolotti was only sixth in the standings and had already watched his stablemate Franck Perera steal the spotlight from him by claiming Lamborghini’s historic maiden win in the DTM.
But after a slow start to the year, Bortolotti pulled off an incredible victory in the next round at the Nurburgring, before becoming the first double winner of the season just two weeks later at the Lausitzring to snatch the championship lead.
Another win followed at the Sachsensring and suddenly there was a new favourite for the title. However, just when the momentum was on his side, Bortolotti picked up a puncture at the Red Bull Ring after being tapped on the opening lap by Porsche driver Marvin Dienst. A 21st-place finish was all he could manage, his second non-score after a mysterious DNS at the Nurburgring, and suddenly Preining was back in the box seat again.
A 10-point difference kept the title fight relatively open at Hockenheim, but Preining made it a one-man show as he dominated both qualifying sessions and races at the former Formula 1 venue to clinch the championship in style. It was exactly the kind of performance Porsche expected from Preining, and he was duly rewarded with a maiden LMDh test just weeks later in Bahrain.
