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 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's Schubert Motorsport BMW came under pressure from Marco Wittmann's Project 1 example 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 to the track with his lead intact, van der Linde unable to make any dent into his advantage having pitted on the previous tour.
From there on, Engel could cruise to the finish, with his winning margin the largest seen in the DTM since the penultimate race of the 2021 season at the Norisring.
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, which allowed him to get the jump on both Wittmann and his own team-mate Mirko Bortolotti to 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 following his stop.
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.
Winward Mercedes driver Lucas Auer rebounded from qualifying 12th to finish sixth, having made a rapid start to jump to ninth on the opening lap before gaining further positions during the stops.
Auer led Manthey EMA driver 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.
The elder van der Linde brother 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 an 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.
DTM Zandvoort Race 1 Results (39 laps):
| Cla | Driver | Car | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
 Maro Engel |
Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo | |
| 2 |
 Sheldon Van Der Linde |
BMW M4 GT3 | 6.000 |
| 3 | Frank Perera | Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 | 0.528 |
| 4 |
 Mirko Bortolotti |
Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 | 1.166 |
| 5 |
Marco Wittmann |
BMW M4 GT3 | 0.380 |
| 6 |
 Lucas Auer |
Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo | 3.477 |
| 7 |
Thomas Preining |
Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) | 0.645 |
| 8 |
 Jack Aitken |
Ferrari 296 GT3 | 2.663 |
| 9 |
René Rast |
BMW M4 GT3 | 9.356 |
| 10 | Jusuf Owega | Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo | 3.395 |
| 11 |
Luca Stolz |
Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo | 1.896 |
| 12 |
Kelvin van der Linde |
Audi R8 LMS Evo II | 0.081 |
| 13 |
 Ayhancan Güven |
Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) | 0.731 |
| 14 |
Luca Engstler |
Audi R8 LMS Evo II | 1.539 |
| 15 |
 Ricardo Feller |
Audi R8 LMS Evo II | 0.356 |
| 16 |
 Dennis Olsen |
Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) | 0.585 |
| 17 |
 Arjun Maini |
Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo | 0.906 |
| 18 |
Mattia Drudi |
Audi R8 LMS Evo II | 0.599 |
| 19 | Tim Heinemann | Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) | 0.652 |
| 20 |
Patric Niederhauser |
Audi R8 LMS Evo II | 0.377 |
| 21 |
Clemens Schmid |
Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 | 1.656 |
| 22 |
Mick Wishofer |
Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 | 7.873 |
| 23 |
Christian Engelhart |
Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) | 17.613 |
| 24 |
Alessio Deledda |
Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 | 1 lap |
| 25 | Thierry Vermeulen | Ferrari 296 GT3 | 13 laps |
| 26 |
Laurin Heinrich |
Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) | 23 laps |
| 27 |
David Schumacher |
Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo | 2'11.014 |
| View full results | |||
