Bortolotti Dominates Red-Flagged Sunday Race

Mirko Bortolotti claimed his third victory of the season by winning the Sunday DTM race at the Sachsenring, which was interrupted by a red flag due to multiple incidents on the opening lap.

Bortolotti, driving the No. 92 SSR Performance Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, took the checkered flag 1.541 seconds ahead of the No. 4 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Luca Stolz.

Ricardo Feller initially finished third aboard the No. 7 ABT Sportsline Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II.

However, the Swiss driver was given a five-second penalty after the race for contact with the No. 14 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 of Jack Aitken.

Feller challenged Aitken battled for third place when the British driver rejoined the track following his pitstop, after Stolz had already made his way through into second place.

Contact with Feller resulted in left rear damage to Aitken’s car, leading to a second consecutive retirement for the No. 14 Ferrari.

The penalty dropped Feller from third to sixth place, promoting the No. 94 SSR Performance Lamborghini of Franck Perera to the final podium position.

Notably, Thomas Preining also benefited, moving from fifth to fourth place while the No. 69 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari of Thierry Vermeulen rounded out the top five.

Bortolotti’s victory meant the Italian still regained command in the championship battle, although the gap between the two drivers is now nine points instead of eleven under the original classification.

The clash between Feller and Aitken was one of a number of incidents in a chaotic race that was halted by a red flag on the opening lap.

First, ABT Sportsline’s Kelvin van der Linde made contact with the No. 48 Mercedes of Maro Engel, sending the German spinning into the gravel in an incident that also involved Ayhancan Guven.

A few moments later, a light touch between Jusuf Owega and Lucas Auer resulted in the latter tagging the No. 1 Schubert Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 of Sheldon van der Linde into a spin.

This triggered a chain reaction that eliminated Van der Linde, Marvin Dienst, Laurin Heinrich and Dennis Olsen from the race and forced it to be stopped.

Bortolotti maintained his lead after the race restarted behind the safety car, leading Stolz and the No. 14 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 of Jack Aitken into the pit stop window.

Aitken then briefly emerged ahead of both Stolz and Feller on the overcut, only for both drivers to fight back past during the British driver’s out lap.

Franck Perera finished fourth aboard the No. 94 SSR Performance Lamborghini, while Preining completed the top five behind the wheel of the No. 91 Porsche 911 GT3 R.

Arjun Maini and Rene Rast’s No. 33 Schubert Motorsport BMW finished seventh and eighth.

Patric Niederhauser and Jusuf Owega completed the top ten, finishing in front of David Schumacher and Marco Wittmann.

Kelvin van der Linde recovered to 13th place after serving three penalty laps for the contact with Engel, while Tim Heinemann and Lucas Auer took the final points.

Auer became involved in incidents twice, first running through the gravel after contact from Tim Heinemann before serving three penalty laps himself when he collided with the No. 8 Liqui-Moly Team Engstler Audi of Luca Engstler.

RESULTS: Race 2 (Amended)