Van der Linde Sweeps Lausitzring Weekend

Sheldon van der Linde won the Sunday DTM race at the Lausitzring from pole position ahead of Maro Engel, completing a sweep of the weekend and taking the championship lead in the process.

Van der Linde had already won the race on Saturday, ending a win drought of over 600 days, and followed it up with his third career victory a day later.

The No. 31 Schubert Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 started the race from pole position and maintained the lead at the start, controlling the race from the front to take the race victory and the championship lead with it.

The South African became only the third driver in DTM’s GT3 era to win both races during a weekend, following Liam Lawson and Maximilian Goetz, who won both races at last year’s Norisring finale to be crowned champion.

GruppeM Racing’s Maro Engel finished the race in second place, taking the position in a heated battle with the GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo of Mirko Bortolotti.

Bortolotti attempted a dive up the inside into turn 2 on the opening lap, which resulted in Engel’s No. 88 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo going off track and rejoining just ahead of the Italian, thus maintaining second place.

The Lamborghini driver, in turn, would lose third place to Rene Rast, with the German then going on to complete the podium.

Rast even briefly held second placed as he came out ahead of Engel during the mandatory stop cycle before the Mercedes driver took the position back into turn 2.

Bortolotti would lose out even further as the pitstops cycled through, eventually falling behind both Philipp Eng and Nico Mueller, who rounded out the top five.

Eng, meanwhile, was aided by a fast pitstop from his Schubert crew, which allowed the team to finish with both of its cars in the top five.

In the closing stages, Bortolotti repeatedly attempted to take back fifth place, but would end the race in sixth.

Ricarco Feller finished seventh ahead of Lucas Auer, with Laurens Vanthoor and Marco Wittmann completing the top ten.

RESULTS: Race 2