Aitken Denies Rast to Win Lausitzring Race 2

Jack Aitken ambushed Rene Rast on the penultimate lap at the Lausitzring to secure victory in a thrilling second DTM race of the weekend.

The first non-Mercedes driver to score pole position this year, Aitken’s Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 survived a hectic opening lap to lead the early stages of the contest. But his route to victory was made significantly harder when Rast’s Schubert Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 EVO battled past following the first mandatory stops.

The three-time DTM champion had pitted one lap before Aitken, whose own service was 1.1s slower, and with his tires up to temperature muscled past through the final turns of the Briton’s outlap.

Aitken was unable to mount an immediate response as the safety car then arrived to cover the removal of debris from Marco Wittmann’s Schubert BMW, its rear bumper having been plucked off in contact with Morris Schuring’s Manthey Junior Team Porsche 911 GT3 R.

Rast immediately built a gap at the restart and although Aitken had closed by the time the second pit window opened, Schubert again serviced Rast faster than Aitken, ensuring the positions remained unchanged.

However, the Ferrari was visibly quicker during the third stint and, despite pressure from Jules Gounon’s Winward Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, Aitken managed to outfox Rast by hanging around the outside at Turn 6 left-hand hairpin which became the inside for the following right-hand sweeper.

As Rast turned his attentions to keeping Gounon behind, Aitken romped to victory by 1.68 seconds, while the BMW held second in a drag race to the line by 0.045 seconds.

Rast had moved into contention from eighth on the grid after problems befell several rivals starting in Aitken’s immediate vicinity. Thomas Preining had been challenging Aitken exiting the first corner on the opening lap, but the 2023 DTM champion’s Manthey EMA Porsche suffered contact in the skirmish and retired with broken suspension.

Race one winner Lucas Auer’s Landgraf Mercedes-AMG looked set to take advantage, and briefly held second before being edged into the Turn 7 gravel by Wittmann. But his challenge for victory also proved short-lived, as ABS problems caused Wittmann to lock up dramatically and plunge straight on at Turn 1.

Third still represented a strong recovery for Gounon, who entered the frame from 13th on the grid with a series of passes following the safety car.

He scythed past Auer and Thierry Vermeulen’s Ferrari to hold fifth once the stops were completed, then lined up Jordan Pepper’s Grasser Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO 2 for fourth at the precise moment Maro Engel (Winward Mercedes-AMG) ran deep trying to pass Aitken into Turn 10.

Engel trailed Pepper home in fifth, while Mirko Bortolotti completed an excellent recovery from 20th on the grid by passing Vermeulen to finish sixth in his Abt Motorsport Lamborghini. The defending champion made up 10 positions on the opening lap, but had to fight back again from 15th after being bundled off the road by Ben Doerr (Doerr Motorsport McLaren 720S GT3 Evo).

Wittmann completed an entertaining afternoon by holding off the attentions of Auer for eighth, while Maximilian Paul lost a hard-earned 10th place finish in his family-run Lamborghini for coming in one lap too late in the second pit window. The 60-second penalty added to his race time demoted Paul to an unrepresentative 19th.

Timo Glock (Doerr Motorsport) inherited 10th ahead of Schuring and Ricardo Feller (Land Motorsport Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II).

Following his penalty for the Bortolotti incident, Doerr finished 13th, while the points were completed by Nicki Thiim in the second Abt Lamborghini and Ayhancan Guven’s Manthey EMA Porsche.

RESULTS: Race 2