Cassidy Takes Lights-to-Flag Saturday Victory

Nick Cassidy captured his second career victory in DTM by winning the Saturday race at the Red Bull Ring in dominant fashion.

Cassidy’s No. 37 AlphaTauri AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo 2020 started the race from pole position and retained the race lead in the opening phase.

After that, he remained ahead of the battling pair of Rene Rast and Mirko Bortolotti and crossed the line 2.5 seconds ahead of Rast to take back-to-back victories after winning at Spa last time out.

He becomes only the second driver this season to take more than one race victory after Sheldon van der Linde.

Behind him, Rast and Bortolotti completed the podium. Both drivers vaulted up into their respective position on the opening lap, coming from fourth and sixth on the grid.

Bortolotti pressured the three-time champion throughout the first half of the race, but the gap between the two widened when the No. 63 Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo endured a slow stop.

Lucas Auer and Thomas Preining were classified fourth and fifth after penalties for both drivers were reversed on Saturday evening.

Both cars took ten-second penalties as Auer was caught speeding in the pitlane while Preining was punished for contact with Mueller in a lengthy, hard-fought scrap that also involved Mikael Grenier, Maro Engel and Maximilian Goetz.

However, stewards later stated that both penalties would be reversed.

In Auer’s case, it was determined that ‘a check of the GPS data revealed that the original speed measurement was incorrect.’

Preining was reinstated to fifth “after hearing both parties and evaluating further video recordings, it was decided that no driver was fully responsible for the incident” with Mueller.

Nico Mueller was classified sixth ahead Maro Engel, who was promoted to seventh after Kelvin van der Linde was found to have left the circuit at turn one and gained an advantage.

The top ten was completed by Goetz and Luca Stolz.

Notably, championship leader Sheldon van der Linde finished outside the points in eleventh, ahead of Philipp Eng, Arjun Maini and Marco Wittmann.

RESULTS: Race 1