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Motorsport

Sport

Rachit Thukral

Muller leads Bortolotti as Hockenheim DTM test ends

DTM Mirko Bortolotti Nico Muller Hockenheim Audi Lamborghini Laurens Vanthoor Marius Zug Nick Cassidy Felipe Fraga

Overnight rain left the track damp and greasy for the early part of the day, but the conditions soon improved sufficiently enough for drivers to switch to slick tyres.

Factory Lamborghini racer Bortolotti was the first driver to break the 1m40s barrier in his Grasser Racing Huracan GT3, moving to the top of the timesheets with a 1m39.201s.

This would remain the quickest time of the morning session, with Porsche ace Laurens Vanthoor coming closest to beating the Italian driver with his effort of 1m39.532s.

After the track action resumed following a two-hour break, Bortolotti lowered his own benchmark by almost a second, posting a time of 1m38.644s to maintain his stranglehold on the top spot on the timesheets.

However, Bortolotti's reign ultimately proved to be short-lived as Muller managed to go even quicker just 10 minutes later, setting a time of 1m38.532s in his Team Rosberg-run Audi R8 LMS GT3.

Although this lap was fractionally slower than Audi stablemate Marius Zug’s chart-topping time from Tuesday, it was good enough to end the day the quickest of all as the majority of the field switched to race simulations.

Zug himself ended up third on the leaderboard on Wednesday behind Bortolotti in the sole Attempto Audi, just over two tenths off the pace of Muller.

Three-time DTM champion Rene Rast enjoyed another productive day in the Abt Sportsline Audi, finishing fourth-fastest with a time of 1m39.028s after completing a total of 65 laps across the two sessions.

The Mercedes contingent was led by Canadian racer and GruppeM’s new signing Mikael Grenier, who edged out teammate Maro Engel by just 0.006s - with reigning champion Maximilian Gotz finishing a position behind by the same margin in seventh.

Factory Aston Martin driver Nicki Thiim delivered a 1.5s improvement over his time from Tuesday to end up a strong eighth in his T3 Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan, just ahead of the leading BMWs of Walkenhorst driver Marco Wittmann and Schubert’s Philipp Eng.

Further down the order, Vanthoor finished 15th-quickest in the SSR Performance after failing to improve on his morning laptime in the second session of the day.

Red Bull driver Felipe Fraga was classified two places behind in 17th with a best time of 1m39.539s, while the other AF Corse-run Ferrari shared by Nick Cassidy and WRC legend Sebastien Loeb ended up 21st in the final classification.

Cassidy and Loeb’s individual laptimes remain unclear as the transponder on their Ferrari 488 GT3 wasn’t updated to account for driver change, but the Frenchman didn’t venture out on track until after a special session to help determine the Balance of Performance in the afternoon.

"The test in Hockenheim was a good experience and very important for me to discover the car better and better," said the nine-time WRC champion. "We’re still working on getting the best use of the new tyres but we’re getting there.

"I understood some more things today in my driving style, that was good. We will try to use all the information as good as possible for Portimao to set some proper lap times.“

Kelvin van der Linde didn’t complete a single lap all day after Abt Sportsline detected mechanical problems on his Audi, while T3 Motorsport driver Esmee Hawkey also remained out of action after reportedly testing positive for COVID-19.

The BoP run, which lasted an hour and involved every two-car team nominating one driver, was also topped by Muller.