Porsche driver Thomas Preining starts DTM weekend in the Ardennes with the fastesr time of the day
With Thomas Preining (AUT, KÜS Team Bernhard) and local hero Laurens Vanthoor (BEL, SSR Performance) a Porsche driver came out on top in each of the two DTM free practice sessions at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps on Friday. Preining’s time of 2m 17.786s in second free practice was the fastest time of the day among DTM’s 27 world-class drivers at the 7.004 kilometres Grand Prix track in the Belgian Ardennes, the venue for the sixth and third-to-last race weekend of the current season.
Right before the start of first free practice, the BMW M4 of Belgian driver Esteban Muth was presented in the pit box of the Walkenhorst Motorsport team. For his home race, Muth is running a special livery on his race car, designed by Belgian Princess Delphine de Saxe-Cobourg. The princess unveiled the car together with the driver who was apparently boosted by the prominent support from the Belgian royal family: in second practice, Muth achieved his best result of the year so far with eighth place. His compatriot Laurens Vanthoor turned out to be in strong form as well: in first practice, he ended up fastest with the SSR Porsche, in the second session he was classified third behind Norisring winner Thomas Preining and Nürburgring winner Luca Stolz (GER, HRT Mercedes-AMG). The fastest BMW driver was Philipp Eng (AUT, Schubert Motorsport), fastest Audi driver was Nico Müller (SUI, Team Rosberg). Points’ leader Sheldon van der Linde (RSA) was ninth in the late afternoon session with the Schubert BMW while his main rival, Mirko Bortolotti, had been third-fastest in the earlier session with the GRT Lamborghini.
“A good start of the weekend,“ a delighted Thomas Preining said. “There surely are one or two points in which we can improve for Saturday, but fundamentally, this is a super basis. It can continue like this.”
Spa-Francorchamps: a packed programme with seven series and 14 races
Racing enthusiasts can look forward to a packed programme with seven series and a total of 14 races across Saturday and Sunday at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. Next to DTM as the top act, the DTM Trophy talent pool and DTM Classic with historic touring cars from the years between 1984 and 2007, the entry-level one-make series BMW M2 Cup, Lotus Cup Europe, Ferrari Club Deutschland Racing Series and MAXX Formula are present in the Ardennes as well. All practice sessions and races will be broadcast live on the streaming platform DTM TV (tv.dtm.com), both DTM races (race start at 1.30pm CEST on both days) also live on ProSieben from 1pm CEST in German-speaking countries. Tickets are available from the DTM Ticket Shop (tickets.dtm.com) and the ticket hotline (+49 1806 991166).