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Rachit Thukral

Porsche tops final day of Portimao DTM testing

SSR Performance driver Olsen lapped the Portuguese circuit in 1m41.375s, usurping Abt Audi driver Ricardo Feller’s benchmark from Tuesday by just over two tenths of a second.

It ended Audi’s unbeaten streak in pre-season testing, with the Ingolstadt-based manufacturer having also topped the opening two days of testing in Hockenheim earlier this month.

Second-quickest on Wednesday was the Team Rosberg Audi of Muller, who ended up 0.269s off the pace with a time of 1m41.697s. 

The Swiss driver narrowly edged out the top Lamborghini of Nick Thiim, who continued his impressive form in pre-season testing to finish third for the T3 Motorsport team.

Feller couldn’t match his chart-time topping from Tuesday but still ended up a respectable fourth on the timesheets, just ahead of the Team Bernhard 75 Porsche of Thomas Preining.

Factory Lamborghini driver Mirko Bortolotti ended the day sixth-quickest for the Grasser Racing Team, just ahead of his Porsche counterpart Laurens Vanthoor in the second of the two SSR Performance cars.

HRT’s new recruit Luca Stolz was the top Mercedes representative in eighth, half a second off the pace of Olsen, while the top 10 was rounded by the lead BMW of Sheldon van der Linde (Schubert) and Mercedes driver Mikael Greiner (GruppeM).

Red Bull driver Felipe Fraga posted a time of 1m42.005s to end the day 11th quickest in his AF Corse Ferrari, just ahead of the Abt Audi of three-time DTM champion Rene Rast.

Fraga’s teammate and WRC legend Sebastien Loeb completed a full day of running for the first time in pre-season testing, logging 75 laps in his AlphaTauri-liveried Ferrari ahead of his DTM debut later this weekend at Portimao.

Loeb’s best time was a 1m42.990s which put him 28th on the timesheets, just ahead of T3 Motorsport’s Esmee Hawkey and GRT rookie Alessio Deledda.

British driver Ben Green again joined the 29-car field as a reward for winning the GT4-based DTM Trophy last year, finishing just ahead of Loeb in 27th position.

Wednesday’s test again ran late in the evening to allow the DTM to complete TV construction work in daylight, although all drivers returned to the pits by 9pm - an hour before the official end of the day’s running.

There was also a disruption earlier in the day around 6pm when Marco Wittmann crashed his Walkenhorst BMW at Turn 6 with what the team suspects to be a technical problem. The two-time DTM champion didn’t venture out on track again after the incident as the squad investigated the issue in detail, leaving him 19th in the classification with just 16 laps on board.

Marco Wittmann, Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 (Photo by: Alexander Trienitz)

Portimao DTM test - Day 2 results:

Pos

Driver

Team

Time

Gap

1

Dennis OLSEN

SSR Performance

1:41.378

-

Nico MULLER

Team Rosberg

1:41.647

+0.269

Nicki THIIM

T3 Motorsport

1:41.690

+0.312

Ricardo FELLER

ABT Sportsline

1:41.721

+0.343

5

Thomas PREINING

KÜS Team Bernhard

1:41.742

+0.364

Mirko BORTOLOTTI

GRT

1:41.771

+0.393

Laurens VANTHOOR

SSR Performance

1:41.822

+0.444

Luca STOLZ

Mercedes-AMG Team HRT

1:41.926

+0.548

Sheldon VAN DER LINDE

Schubert Motorsport

1:41.971

+0.593

10 

Mikael GRENIER

Mercedes-AMG Team GruppeM

1:42.001

+0.623

11 

Felipe FRAGA

Red Bull AF Corse

1:42.005

+0.627

12 

Rene RAST

Team ABT

1:42.023

+0.645

13 

Maximilian GOTZ

Mercedes-AMG Team WINWARD

1:42.042

+0.664

14 

Kelvin VAN DER LINDE

ABT Sportsline

1:42.079

+0.701

15

Lucas AUER

Mercedes-AMG Team WINWARD

1:42.093

+0.715

16

Marius ZUG

Attempto Racing

1:42.094

+0.716

17

Maximilian BUHK

Mercedes-AMG Team Mücke

1:42.106

+0.728

18

Arjun MAINI

Mercedes-AMG Team HRT

1:42.121

+0.743

19

Marco WITTMANN

Walkenhorst Motorsport

1:42.167

+0.789

20

Philipp ENG

Schubert Motorsport

1:42.252

+0.874

21 

David SCHUMACHER

Mercedes-AMG Team WINWARD

1:42.321

+0.943

22 

Dev GORE

Team Rosberg

1:42.323

+0.945

23 

Rolf INEICHEN

GRT

1:42.366

+0.988

24 

Clemens SCHMID

GRT grasser-racing.com

1:42.401

+1.023

25 

Esteban MUTH

Walkenhorst Motorsport

1:42.541

+1.163

26 

Maro ENGEL

Mercedes-AMG Team GruppeM

1:42.595

+1.217

27 

Ben GREEN

Mercedes-AMG Team HRT

1:42.909

+1.531

28 

Sebastien LOEB

AlphaTauri AF Corse

1:42.990

+1.612

29 

Esmee HAWKEY

T3 Motorsport

1:43.040

+1.662

30 

Alessio DELEDDA

GRT grasser-racing.com

1:43.774

+2.396

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