Preining Widens Points Lead With Race 1 Pole

Thomas Preining secured pole position for DTM Race 1 at Hockenheim, extending his championship advantage over Mirko Bortolotti who had a pole lap deleted for track limits.

The Austrian steered the No. 91 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3 R to best lap of 1:37.148, beating the No. 19 GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Christian Engelhart by 0.137 seconds.

Stablemate Dennis Olsen was third, joined on the second row of the grid by SSR Performance’s Franck Perera.

It marks the second pole position for Preining this season, following on from Race 2 at Oschersleben.

Crucially, with neither Mirko Bortolotti nor Ricardo Feller qualifying inside the top three, Preining extended his advantage in the drivers’ standings by grabbing the three points available for pole position.

The Porsche driver now holds a 13-point lead over Bortolotti, who briefly held provisional pole before his lap was taken away for track limits. Feller sits 34 points behind in third.

The No. 92 SSR Performance Lamborghini looked to have pole secured with an effort of 1:37.023, only to have it deleted when he ran wide at Turn 1.

A second effort proved not as fruitful and Bortolotti qualified eighth, one place behind Feller.

Jack Aitken, meanwhile took the No. 14 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 to fifth with Kelvin van der Linde in sixth position.

Clemens Schmid and the No. 4 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Luca Stolz completed the top ten.

The first race of the DTM weekend kicks off at 1:30 p.m. CEST (7:30 p.m. EDT).

RESULTS: Qualifying 1