Preining Quickest in Norisring Practice

Thomas Preining set the fastest time in Friday practice running for the DTM round at the Norisring.

During the second of two 45-minute sessions, the Austrian driver reeled off the quickest time of the day by posting a 49.201 aboard the No. 91 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3 R.

Preining’s time compared favorably to the 49.564 that compatriot Lucas Auer set in the morning behind the wheel of the No. 22 Mercedes-AMG Team Winward Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

The entire top ten of the day was covered by times set during the afternoon session.

Ayhancan Guven came second in his No. 24 KÜS Team Bernhard Porsche, falling behind Preining by just 0.001 seconds.

Mirko Bortolotti completed the top three aboard the No. 92 SSR Performance Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, ahead of Team Project 1’s Marco Wittmann and the No. 75 Porsche driven by Laurin Heinrich.

Dennis Olsen and Lucas Auer took sixth and seventh, with Auer’s time of 49.349 0.215 seconds quicker than the lap that allowed him to top Free Practice 1.

The top ten was rounded out by Kelvin van der Linde, Luca Stolz and Sheldon van der Linde.

Both 45-minutes sessions ran almost entirely under green flag conditions, except for a late Full Course Yellow in the second session when Franck Perera’s No. 94 SSR Performance Lamborghini was hit by the No. 8 Audi driven by Luca Engstler at turn 1.

Qualifying for the first race of the weekend starts Saturday at 9:35 a.m CEST (3:35 a.m. EDT).

Similarly to last year, DTM has adopted a grouped qualifying format for the Norisring event, with the groups based on Free Practice results.

The second group will take to the track at 10 a.m CEST (4 a.m. EDT).

RESULTS: Practice 1/Practice 2