Race 2 of the DTM at Norisring recorded the great redemption of Felipe Fraga and AF Corse, with the Brazilian triumphing making the most of the Pole Position won in Qualifying 2 this morning.
After the disasters of Race 1 and the subsequent controversies, nothing serious happened at the start, even if some touches in the middle of the group caused the early retirement for the Mercedes of David Schumacher (Team Winward), Mikael Grenier (Gruppe M Racing) and Maximilian Buhk (Team Mücke Motorsport), and for the Audi of Ricardo Feller (ABT Sportsline).
Fraga was perfect from the moment the traffic lights went off, shooting better than Mirko Bortolotti who was at his side; behind the wheel of the Ferrari 488 branded Red Bull, the South American did not do anything wrong, putting a handful of seconds to distance him from the Lamborghini of the rival of Grasser Racing.
Marco Wittmann instead put the BMW M4 of Walkenhorst Motorsport in third place, closely followed by the Audi R8 LMS of René Rast (Team ABT) and the Porsche of Dennis Olsen (SSR Performance).
And the latter, among those in the leading group, was the first to stop, choosing lap 39 to make the obligatory pit stop. All those to follow instead opted to return to the previous rounds, with the ranking that has been reshuffled not a little given the nature of the citizen of Nuremberg, on which ‘virtual dubbed’ and people in tussle have mixed.
Fraga and Bortolotti preferred to wait for lap 45 to change their Michelins, but the positions did not change and for Trentino it was not enough to make the fastest lap to get the better of the Prancing Horse standard bearer.
Mirko Bortolotti, Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan EVO GT3
Photo by: Alexander Trienitz
Rast, on the other hand, was helped by stopping a passage before Wittmann, thus managing to bypass him by blowing him the third step of the podium. Olsen lost contact from his rivals’ train and crossed the finish line fifth.
Maximilian Gotz finished sixth with Winward Racing’s Mercedes-AMG, overtaking the combative Ayhancan Güven in the final, who with the AF Corse Ferrari in AlphaTauri livery had distinguished himself in some nice overtakes in the first half of the race.
Luca Stolz’s Mercedes (Team HRT) is eighth, followed by the Porsche of Race 1 winner Thomas Preining (Team Bernhard) and Maro Engel’s Mercedes (GruppeM Racing) to complete the Top10.
Philipp Eng left dry with the BMW of Schubert Motorsport, the Audi of Nico Muller (Team Rosberg), the Mercedes of Lucas Auer (Team Winward) and Arjun Maini (Team HRT), Sheldon Van Der Linde on the BMW of Schubert ( losing the lead in the standings), Laurens Vanthoor with the other Porsche of SSR Performance, the Lamborghini-GRTs of Clemens Schmid and Alessio Deledda, and the Audi of Dev Gore (Team Rosberg).
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