Porsche dominates the final DTM qualifying session of the season, but things aren’t going to plan for title favourite Preining: Engel is ahead of him, disaster for Wittmann
High tension at the final DTM qualifying session at Hockenheim – and once again the weather plays a key role: a sudden downpour throws the teams’ strategies into disarray. A Porsche driver takes pole, but it’s not DTM leader Thomas Preining: Porsche rookie Bastian Buus secures the top spot on the grid with a time of 1:36.923 (results), ahead of Manthey team-mate Ricardo Feller, who was just six thousandths of a second off the pace.
“To be honest, I didn’t expect it either,” said the young Porsche driver from Denmark, speaking to ran.de after securing his first DTM pole position. “It’s been a season full of ups and downs – it’s fantastic that we’ve finally got everything right and set up the car perfectly for the final qualifying session.”
Favourite Porsche driver Preining finished only seventh, 0.306 seconds off the pace, which makes the title race all the more exciting. That’s because Winward Mercedes driver Maro Engel finished third, closing the gap in the championship by one point and now trailing by 21 points. He was 0.128 seconds off pole position. Fourth place went to Engel’s Winward team-mate Jules Gounon (+0.139).
Maro Engel believes he has a chance of the title after securing third on the grid
“Good qualifying lap, the car was good,” said Engel to ran.de, expressing his general satisfaction with his qualifying result. “It’s a shame it wasn’t quite enough for the very front or at least second place. But yes, it’s a good, solid starting position.”
The 41-year-old knows that a win is now essential to snatch a second title from his rival Preining at the finish line. “We’re going all out,” announced the AMG driver. “We believe in our chances, we’ll try to win the race and then we’ll see what happens next.”
But what does arch-rival and title favourite Preining have to say about seventh place? “It could have been a lot worse,” he said, sounding positive on ran.de. “We had a minor problem during the warm-up, then the tyres weren’t quite in the sweet spot, but basically, seventh place is still a result we can work with.”
Preining also believes he has “the least pressure, so in that respect everything’s fine”. However, he doesn’t want to talk about an easy starting position: “Nothing’s relaxed in the DTM, and first of all you’ve got to finish the race. It’s going to be a gruelling afternoon; we need to get through it cleanly and not make any mistakes.”
On the third row are the two Emil Frey Ferrari team-mates, Matteo Cairoli (+0.154) and Thierry Vermeulen (+0.273), who also finished ahead of Preining. Marco Mapelli will start from eighth on the grid on Sunday, with the Abt Lamborghini driver racing as a lone wolf following his team-mate Luca Engstler’s crash on Saturday.
Marco Wittmann is “not at all” satisfied
Timo Glock (Dörr-McLaren) rounds off his mixed DTM season with ninth on the grid (+0.327), followed by team-mate Ben Dörr (+0.502) in tenth place. Saturday’s winner, Lucas Auer, could only manage twelfth place in his Landgraf Mercedes, 0.646 seconds off the pace.
Things went even worse, however, for Preining’s main challenger in the title race: Marco Wittmann finished a mere 16th in his Schubert BMW, 0.863 seconds off the pace, and is understandably “not at all” satisfied. “We didn’t stand a chance,” says the runner-up in the overall standings. “It was already becoming clear yesterday during the race that we lacked pace.”
The Franconian, who trails Preining by 20 points in the championship, must now hope for a miracle in the race – which doesn’t start until 4.30 pm – to somehow fight his way to the front and keep his title hopes alive. At present, however, it looks as though Manthey-Porsche driver Thomas Preining is set to claim his second title.