the austrian Lucas Auer has conquered the victory in the race on Saturday of the first appointment of the DTM 2022, disputed in Portimao. The Team Winward rider overtook his brand mate Luca Stolz in a tight finish to start the season as the leader. The Italian Mirko Bortolotti, despite starting on pole, had to settle for third position after making an error unbecoming of its category at the restart after the Safety Car caused by the #19 Lamborghini. In his first DTM race, the Frenchman Sébastien Loeb has finished in sixteenth position.
Lucas Auer started the race very combative, so much so that at times he seemed destined to take the first position from Mirko Bortolotti. He couldn’t and the GRT Grasser driver asserted his pole to lead the race in the early stages. Much more eventful were these first few laps at the back of the pack, as well as more unfortunate for the Team Rosberg drivers. Nico Müller was left out after touching a rival. Dev Gore suffered the same fate. Marco Wittmann did not survive the first laps either, with a problem in his BMW M4 GT3.
The first pit stops occurred after seven laps. Ricardo Feller opened the season, which also brought riders like Maximilian Götz, René Rast and Laurens Vanthooor to the pitlane. The objective was to surprise the leading drivers with a more aggressive strategy. In the fight for the lead, Lucas Auer advanced his stop compared to Mirko Bortolotti, but the strategy was not effective and the Italian returned to the track as virtual leader. And it is that pilots like Felipe Fraga were ahead for fulfilling his obligatory stop.
However, the usual dynamics of a DTM race were broken with what Lamborghini #19 problems. Rolf Ineichen’s car, stopped at the pit exit, caused the appearance of the Safety Car with five drivers who had not yet stopped and who They took advantage of this circumstance to make their obligatory passage through the pitlane. Mirko Bortolotti remained as leader, but this position did not last long. A huge mistake at the start made him fall to sixth place, although he managed to recover his pulse and placed fourth. Lucas Auer remained as the new leader.
With Felipe Fraga out of the equation after a touch and the abandonment of René Rast, the race entered its final stretch. Lucas Auer did not hesitate at the head of the group and got the win ahead of Luca Stolz, present during the last minutes of the race in the mirrors of the leader continuously. For his part, Mirko Bortolotti took third position after a nice duel with Maro Engel, fourth in the first instance, but tenth after receiving a five-second penalty.
Kelvin Van der Linde thus inherited the final fourth place, while Dennis Olsen closed the ‘top 5’ under the checkered flag. Ricardo Feller took sixth place ahead of Sheldon Van der Linde, the best BMW driver. The last points at stake fell into the hands of the experienced Laurens Vanthoor, Philipp Eng and Maro Engel. Despite signing a good race and gaining several positions avoiding the problems that have left other drivers out, Sébastien Loeb closed his debut in the DTM with a 16th place finish.
Results race 1 of the DTM 2022 in Portimao
Photos: DTM