DTM Sachsenring: Aitken claims dominant win, Bortolotti regains title lead

Emil Frey Ferrari driver Jack Aitken led the opening race at Sachsenring from start to finish to claim his third victory of the 2024 DTM season.

Having inherited pole position as a result of Thomas Preining’s five-place grid penalty, 28-year-old Aitken had no trouble fending off his rivals as he took the chequered flag with a winning margin of 1.8s.

Factory Lamborghini driver Mirko Bortolotti finished second for SSR Performance to snatch the lead of the championship from Abt Audi driver Kelvin van der Linde, while Winward Mercedes’ Maro Engel completed the podium spots in third to boost his own title hopes.

At the start of the race, Aitken moved to the left to cover off fellow front-row starter Bortolotti, while HRT driver Luca Stolz maintained third in the best of the Mercedes cars.

Further behind, Engel jumped Stolz’s team-mate Arjun Maini to grab fourth position, while van der Linde rose from 10th to seventh on the opening lap to limit the damage from his poor qualifying performance.

Meanwhile, Aitken steadily extended his lead over Bortolotti, extending his lead to two seconds in just nine laps. By the time the pit window opened after 20 minutes of racing, the British driver had built a buffer of over four seconds, such was his pace in the Ferrari 296 GT3.

Bortolotti tried to undercut Aitken by heading into the pitlane relatively early on lap 16, forcing the latter to cover him on the next tour. Emil Frey was also slow with the front tyre change, costing him up to two seconds.

But such was the advantage that Aitken had built in the first stint that he still managed to return to the track with his lead intact, albeit with Bortolotti breathing down his neck with his tyres already up to temperature.

Ultimately, Aitken was able to pull away from Bortolotti again and cruise to a fourth win of his DTM career and establish himself as an outside contender for the championship.

Mirko Bortolotti, SSR Performance Lamborghini Huracán EVO GT3 (Photo by: Alexander Trienitz)

Bortolotti was classified a distant second, but with van der Linde languishing down in eighth place, the result was enough for him to wrest back the control of the championship by six points.

Third place in the race went to Engel, who had overtaken Mercedes stablemate Stolz for the final spot on the podium with a brilliant pass around the outside of Turn 2 on lap 12.

Maini claimed fifth place behind team-mate Stolz, as Mercedes secured three cars inside the top five.

Meanwhile, reigning DTM champion Thomas Preining scored a solid sixth-place finish after coming on top in a long and fierce duel with van der Linde, passing the Audi driver into Turn 1 on lap 35.

Van der Linde was also overtaken towards the end of the race by the top Schubert BMW of Rene Rast, who completed an incredible recovery from the back of the grid to take seventh place.

Rast, who also carried a five-place grid penalty for racking up three reprimands, was already up to 13th place at the start and ran deep in the first stint, leaving his pitstop until lap 28.

With fresher tyres for the final part of the race, he was even able to close in on Preining, but eventually settled for seventh place.

Rast’s team-mate Sheldon van der Linde was ninth at the finish, just behind his brother Kelvin, after the two battled for position in the final laps of the race.

DTM debutant Jordan Pepper completed the top 10 for Grasser Lamborghini as he substituted for the injured Christian Engelhart, beating the second Emil Frey Ferrari of Thierry Vermeulen and the last remaining Mercedes of Lucas Auer.

Marco Wittmann damaged the front-left panels of his BMW in a first-lap incident with Luca Engstler, contributing to his tough run to 13th place. The final points-paying positions went to SSR Performance driver Nicki Thiim and Paul Motorsport’s Maximilian Paul.

DTM Sachsenring - Race one results

Main Information Additional Data Additional Data Driver Info

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Main Information Additional Data 1  -  2
Cla	Driver	#		Car	Laps	Time	Interval	Pits	Points
1	J. Aitken Emil Frey Racing	14		Ferrari 296 GT3	46	1:02'22.683			25
2	M. Bortolotti SSR Performance	92		Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	46	+1.878 1:02'24.561	1.878		20
3	M. Engel Mercedes-AMG Team Winward	130		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	46	+3.174 1:02'25.857	1.296		16
4	L. Stolz Mercedes-AMG Team HRT	4		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	46	+4.717 1:02'27.400	1.543		13
5	A. Maini Mercedes-AMG Team HRT	36		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	46	+10.843 1:02'33.526	6.126		11
6	T. Preining Manthey EMA	91		Porsche 911 GT3 R	46	+12.217 1:02'34.900	1.374		10
7	R. Rast Schubert Motorsport	33		BMW M4 GT3	46	+14.210 1:02'36.893	1.993		9
8	K. van der Linde Abt Sportsline	3		Audi R8 LMS Evo II	46	+23.280 1:02'45.963	9.070		8
9	S. Van Der Linde Schubert Motorsport	31		BMW M4 GT3	46	+23.855 1:02'46.538	0.575		7
10	J. Pepper GRT Grasser Racing Team	63		Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	46	+28.606 1:02'51.289	4.751		6
11	T. Vermeulen Emil Frey Racing	69		Ferrari 296 GT3	46	+28.921 1:02'51.604	0.315		5
12	L. Auer Mercedes-AMG Team Mann-Filter	22		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	46	+33.484 1:02'56.167	4.563		4
13	M. Wittmann Schubert Motorsport	11		BMW M4 GT3	46	+42.506 1:03'05.189	9.022		3
14	N. Thiim SSR Performance	94		Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	46	+42.950 1:03'05.633	0.444		2
15	P. Maximilian Paul Motorsport	71		Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	46	+44.120 1:03'06.803	1.170		1
16	B. Dörr Dörr Motorsport	25		McLaren 720S GT3 Evo	46	+44.456 1:03'07.139	0.336
17	A. Güven Manthey EMA	90		Porsche 911 GT3 R	42	+4 Laps 57'23.555	4 Laps
dnf	R. Feller Abt Sportsline	7		Audi R8 LMS Evo II	26	+20 Laps 35'46.639	16 Laps
dnf	L. Engstler GRT Grasser Racing Team	19		Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	19	+27 Laps 26'47.634	7 Laps
dnf	C. Schmid Dörr Motorsport	85		McLaren 720S GT3 Evo	14	+32 Laps 19'35.653	5 Laps
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