Rast Grabs Points Lead With Red Bull Ring Race 1 Win

Rene Rast captured the championship lead in DTM by winning Race 1 at the Red Bull Ring, while Jack Aitken’s title bid suffered a significant blow after a dramatic, last-lap crash caused retirement.

The No. 33 Schubert Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 EVO crossed the line with a margin of 3.564 seconds over the No. 11 sister machine in the hands of Marco Wittmann.

Wittmann started the race from pole with Rast alongside him, but the two cars swapped positions after the opening exchanges with Rast subsequently pulling a gap of some two seconds heading into the mandatory pitstop window.

The No. 11 BMW then also lost second place to Aitken’s No. 14 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 on the undercut, which came after a lengthy battle that saw the two cars make contact at Turn 3.

Aitken looked to have second place secured until the final lap, where he ran wide coming out of Turn 7 and lost control of his Ferrari, spinning into the barriers.

The non-finish cost the British racer the lead in the championship, with Rast’s maximum points haul allowing him to leapfrog from seventh to first in the standings.

The three-time champion now leads Lucas Auer by margin of two points, with GRT Grasser Racing Team driver Jordan Pepper one point further back in third.

Aitken, in turn, dropped to fourth place and trails Rast by eight points.

Thierry Vermeulen finished third in the No. 69 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari, ahead of stablemate Ben Green and the No. 24 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Maro Engel.

Engel moved ahead of Winward teammate Jules Gounon in the closing stages as the Andorran’s Mann-Filter-liveried No. 48 Mercedes-AMG began to smoke and lose pace.

Gounon also dropped behind both Thomas Preining and Pepper’s No. 63 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 and finished eighth before immediately pulling over near Turn 1 and tending to the car with a fire extinguisher.

The overall top ten was completed by Gilles Magnus and Luca Engstler.