Cometh the Auer, endeth the Lambo win
DTM ALGARVE CIRCUIT (PRT) 30 APRIL-1 MAY ROUND 1/8
Mercedes driver Lucas Auer and long-time Audi man Nico Muller shared the spoils as 29 cars lined up at Portimao for the start of the 2022 DTM season.
Auer drew first blood in the opening race of the weekend, the Winward Racing driver taking advantage of a technical problem for Mirko Bortolotti that left the Italian’s Grasser Racing Lamborghini tumbling down the order. Bortolotti had been leading comfortably from pole position and was seemingly on his way to score Lambo’s maiden victory in the DTM, only for a brief loss of power at the safety car restart with 11 laps to go to deny him a historic result. It was the same fuel injection issue that had led to team-mate Rolf Ineichen stopping on track at Turn 1, which caused the safety car to be deployed in the first place.
Auer had put himself second early on with a pass on the front-row-starting Mercedes of DTM rookie Mikael Grenier and, when Bortolotti was unable to accelerate at full speed when the lights went green, he moved into a lead he wouldn’t relinquish. It was a continuation of the form Auer showed in the final part of last season, when the Austrian was among the highest points-scoring drivers in the 19-car field.
HRT’S new signing Luca Stolz finished second behind Auer to complete a 1-2 for Mercedes, while Bortolotti recovered to third after passing another AMG GT3, that of Maro Engel, in the closing stages.
The second race of the weekend featured a dominant performance from pole position from Muller, the Team Rosberg driver proving his 2021 campaign was a blip rather than a trend in the GT3 era of the DTM.
Muller received no formidable challenge from his rivals as he led every lap outside the pit cycle, crossing the finish line with a victory margin of 3.4 seconds.
Bortolotti couldn’t match the pace of the Swiss on Sunday and was also overtaken by the Red Bull-backed AF Corse Ferrari of Felipe Fraga for second, but back-to-back podium finishes put him in an early championship lead.
Porsche delivered an encouraging performance in its first round as a fullseason DTM entrant. Dennis Olsen claimed a best finish of fifth for SSR Performance after all three 911 GT3-RS received a mid-round Balance of Performance boost.
Sebastien Loeb also performed reasonably well on his DTM debut, finishing 16th and 18th in the two races. The highlight of his weekend was the first qualifying session, in which he finished just 0.8s off the pace despite getting very limited track time in the Alphatauri-liveried Ferrari normally driven by Nick Cassidy.
Meanwhile, Rene Rast failed to score a point on what was a troubled return to the DTM for the three-time champion. The German was unlucky to be caught up in the melee at the restart in race one, losing a likely top-10 finish. A lacklustre outing then left him down in 12th in the second race, well behind Abt Audi team-mates Kelvin van der Linde and Ricardo Feller.