Thomas Preining catapulted himself to the front at the start, but then a chain reaction proved his undoing: What exactly happened and led to the Porsche’s retirement
Last year, they secured their only DTM victory of the season, but this year, the Lausitzring was not worth the trip for the Porsche team Manthey: After finishing sixth on Saturday, former champion Thomas Preining wanted to catapult himself to the front from third on the grid at the start on Sunday, but then a chain reaction involving Marco Wittmann and leader Jack Aitken occurred after the first corner.
“I was actually already in front, then I think Jack got hit by Marco and drove into me – and then my car was done,” explained the “Grello” driver after the race. Preining raced back onto the track through the grass, but retired the Porsche shortly afterwards.
TV footage shows Preining driving through the first corner on the inside next to Wittmann and then trying to pass Aitken’s Emil Frey Ferrari on the left, which is hit from behind by the Schubert BMW, causing it to bump into Preining. This is also confirmed by the photo taken by our photographer Alexander Trienitz.
How winner Aitken experienced the momentous collision
According to Manthey, the collision broke the front right track rod on the “Grello” Porsche. “He was hit in an unfortunate spot on his car. That caused us to lose the front suspension and we had to retire the car,” said team boss Nicolas Raeder.
How did Aitken see the situation? “Difficult to say,” said the pole-setter about the chaotic start. “When braking, I thought everything was fine, but at some point there was contact. I have no idea what happened, but at some point I was sideways and was hit very hard on the left side.”
According to the Emil Frey team, Aitken’s steering wheel was no longer straight for the remainder of the race. Nevertheless, he was glad “that there was no major damage.”
“We could have at least finished on the podium.”
In contrast to Preining, whose Porsche was “bouncing” wildly, making it impossible to continue. “I think we could definitely have finished on the podium today,” he said disappointedly. “That’s why it hurts to lose the points, but that’s motorsport sometimes.” Team boss Raeder is also convinced: “That could have been a very strong result.”
For the Austrian, who scored eleven points on Saturday and is now eighth in the championship, this marks the end of a streak, as he had previously finished in the points 35 times in a row. Thanks to his DTM debut victory, Ayhancan Güven is still the best Manthey Porsche driver in the championship, with two more points to his name and in seventh place, 26 points behind leader Lucas Auer.
What went wrong for Oschersleben winner Güven
Like Preining, the Turkish driver had a disappointing weekend in the Lausitz. On Saturday, he finished in eighth place, but on Sunday, qualifying went completely wrong. “Traffic on the track prevented us from carrying out our normal procedures and preparing the tires perfectly,” explained chief engineer Patrick Arkenau.
In the race, he lacked grip on the second and third sets of tires after a good first stint. He “unfortunately had some problems with the pace, which we need to analyze,” said Güven. Youngster Morris Schuring finished eleventh on Sunday, his first points finish after Saturday’s crash in the start scramble.