NÜRBURG — Sheldon van der Linde celebrated his first win of the season on Sunday at the Nürburgring after 41 exciting laps, marking the 100th DTM race victory for BMW.
“I really didn’t expect to win from eighth place on the grid or even to make it onto the podium,” van der Linde said. “My last DTM victory was about a year ago, so this moment feels all the more beautiful. The duel with Maro Engel was at the limit, but it was really fun.”
The event was broadcast LIVE by SPEED SPORT 1.
Maro Engel took second place in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 from Mercedes-AMG Team Winward, making him back on the podium after third place on Saturday. Marco Wittmann came third in another BMW from Schubert Motorsport.
Saturday’s winner Kelvin van der Linde extended his lead in the standings by finishing fourth in the Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo2 from Abt Sportsline. At the fifth DTM stop of the season, the 62,500 visitors at the Nürburgring were treated to exciting and spectacular racing in a wide variety of conditions.
Sheldon van der Linde gained five positions right at the start of the 10th DTM race at the Nürburgring and took third place behind polesitter Engel and Audi driver Ricardo Feller from Abt Sportsline.
Brand colleague Wittmann and Mirko Bortolotti in the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 from SSR Performance followed in fourth and fifth place. After two safety car phases due to the recovery of one vehicle each, Sheldon an der Linde moved up to second place and attacked Engel, who initially won the tough duel that lasted several laps.
After the mandatory pit stops, events unfolded rapidly. René Rast returned to the track with cold Pirelli tires and collided with Engel, who was driving next to him, in his BMW M4 GT3. The Mercedes-AMG driver spun and Rast was penalized with three penalty laps. Sheldon van der Linde took advantage of this and took first place ahead of Engel and Wittmann.
Championship leader Kelvin van der Linde, who had lost a lot of ground after a slight contact at the beginning, benefited from a quick pit stop and took fourth place. This order remained the same until the finish. Ayhancan Güven from Manthey EMA managed the catch-up of the day. The Porsche driver improved by 14 places and achieved his best result of the season in fifth place.
Thierry Vermeulen also made a big leap. The Ferrari driver from the Emil Frey Racing team started the race in 17th place, was the last to change his Pirelli tires and finished sixth. Porsche driver Thomas Preining was aggressive, as he had been on Saturday, but had to leave the track after a collision and ended up in seventh place.
Both Feller and Bortolotti fell back during the race and had to settle for eighth and ninth place. Franck Perera drove his Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 to 10th place.