Manthey EMA’s Preining fell behind each Feller and van de Linde at one stage, however rapidly repassed the duo to assert his first win of 2024 and transfer into second within the standings.
At the beginning of the race, the reigning champion pulled away cleanly from pole place to carry the lead over Feller, however couldn’t shake off the Swiss driver and race one winner van der Linde, who had received the leap on the SSR Efficiency Lamborghini of Mirko Bortolotti.
At the beginning of lap 4, Feller positioned his Audi across the exterior of Preining’s Porsche into Flip 1, which gave him the within line into the next right-hander. Regardless of working barely over the grass, Feller succeeded in barging previous the Austrian, snatching the lead for the primary time within the race.
A quick security automobile interval triggered by Clemens Schmid’s Dorr McLaren threatened to upset the established order, nevertheless it wasn’t till the pit window opened after 20 minutes of racing that the order on the entrance modified once more.
Preining was the primary of the leaders to dive into the pits, with Feller and van der Linde following him in on successive laps.
Feller did handle to retain the lead initially out of the pits, however Preining’s tyres had been already as much as temperature and he discovered a well past the Audi on lap 18 to seize the highest spot again.
Nevertheless, the time they spent battling on monitor left them susceptible to an overcut from van der Linde, who duly leapfrogged each by finishing his necessary pitstop a lap later.
This left Preining sandwiched by the 2 Abt drivers and with the danger of dropping second place as nicely. However the 25-year-old managed to outfox his rivals, streaming previous van der Linde with a daring transfer on the hairpin to make the decisive cross for victory.
Race winner Thomas Preining, Manthey EMA
Picture by: Alexander Trienitz
Feller additionally cleared van der Linde just a few corners later, though the stewards later requested him at hand again the place for an unlawful overtake.
Earlier than Feller and van der Linde might commerce spots, the security automobile was deployed but once more, this time for a collision between Maximilian Paul and Luca Stolz that left each automobiles beached within the gravel at Flip 6.
It was solely when the race resumed with 13 minutes left on the clock that Feller might give approach to his team-mate, by which era Preining had already mastered the restart to cement his place on the entrance.
Van der Linde, regardless of having 20kg of success ballast after his victory on Saturday, stored the strain up on Preining until the tip, however the manufacturing unit Porsche driver was comparatively untroubled as he took the chequered flag with a successful margin of 1.4s.
Feller ended up an extra 1.5s again, whereas Bortolotti took fourth within the sole-surviving SSR Lamborghini after team-mate Nicki Thiim was pressured to retire early with a brake challenge.
Three-time DTM champion Rene Rast managed to pull his Schubert BMW to as excessive as fifth after beginning thirteenth on the grid, however an ill-fated passing try on Bortolotti on the ultimate flip allowed the GRT Lamborghini of Luca Englster to take benefit and full the highest 5.
Rast nonetheless managed to complete as the highest BMW in sixth forward of the Winward Mercedes of Maro Engel, who put in an much more spectacular restoration drive after being shuffled to the again of the grid for a technical infringement in qualifying.
Rast’s BMW team-mates Sheldon van der Linde and Marco Wittmann had been eighth and ninth respectively, whereas Lucas Auer accomplished the highest 10 within the second Winward Mercedes.
Solely 16 automobiles completed the race, which means everybody besides Sixteenth-placed Ben Dorr (Dorr McLaren) scored factors.