The Abt Audi driver held the lead at the initial race start from Thomas Preining, but lost out to the eventual winner in the lap seven restart following an opening lap crash that caused a safety car as the Team Bernhard Porsche powered around his outside.
Van der Linde ran second until the pitstop phase, when he dropped behind team-mate Rene Rast, then was shuffled backwards in subsequent restarts before contact with Mirko Bortolotti's Grasser Lamborghini into Turn 4 resulted in a secondary hit with his team-mate Ricardo Feller.
