Nicki Thiim makes DTM history: The Dane wins the first race at the Norisring, giving Aston Martin its first-ever victory in DTM history. The Comtoyou driver had previously secured pole position and left nothing to chance on his way to victory, which was overshadowed by a horror crash.
“Beautiful, well, I’m still a bit speechless,” says Thiim, who is celebrating his second victory at the Norisring. “Here you need a bit of big balls. But it’s huge fun and we really appreciate that we can always come here. Now we’ll celebrate a little, but tomorrow there’s another race for important points.”
Winward-Mercedes driver Maro Engel finishes in second place; in the closing stages he was able to close in on Thiim once more, but could not launch a serious attack on the Dane. “I gave it everything, but simply had no chance,” says the AMG driver. “Nicki had everything totally under control, that was very impressive, you have to say.”
“Second place was the maximum today and we are satisfied with that,” says Engel, who was able to further extend his lead in the overall standings. Arjun Maini (HRT-Ford) completes the podium in third. In the final laps, the Indian still had to fend off Lucas Auer, but the Landgraf-Mercedes driver found no way past.
Thierry Vermeulen (Emil-Frey-Ferrari) finishes fifth, followed by HRT-Ford driver Finn Wiebelhaus and Jules Gounon in the Winward-Mercedes. Mirko Bortolotti (Grasser-Lamborghini) ends up in eighth place, while Thomas Preining (Manthey-Porsche) and Ben Dörr (Dörr-McLaren) complete the top 10. Emil-Frey-Ferrari driver Matteo Cairoli reaches the finish in eleventh place.
Serious accident causes long interruption
The race was overshadowed shortly after half distance by a serious accident between Kelvin van der Linde (Schubert-BMW) and Maximilian Paul (Grasser-Lamborghini), which initially caused a major scare and then a long interruption.
Apparently, Paul lost control of his Grasser-Lamborghini while braking for the Grundig hairpin and first slammed into the guardrails on the right-hand side. He then slid uncontrollably across the track before hitting the South African’s BMW at high speed – and, of all places, at the level of the driver’s door.
After the health condition of both drivers was initially unclear, there was later a cautious all-clear: Both van der Linde and Paul were responsive, but were taken to hospital for further examination.
Local hero Marco Wittmann with early retirement
The start of the race initially passed without any major incidents: Engel tried to go around the outside of polesitter Thiim in the first corner, but Thiim held his ground and defended the lead. Behind them, Maini, Gounon and Auer lined up.
Further back in the field, there were minor skirmishes in which Marco Wittmann picked up a puncture on his Schubert-BMW and had to head in for an early pit stop. The local hero then returned to the track in the middle of the field and shortly afterwards decided to park the car for good.
“Because we put a different tire on the left rear, you naturally have an offset in the car, you first have to bring the tire up to temperature,” Wittmann explains on ProSieben. “You have a blue flag, you’re basically a lap down that you won’t get back here. And so the race is over.”
“I mean, since the first free practice we simply haven’t had the performance to fight our way back somehow,” the BMW driver admits disappointedly. While Thiim was then able to slightly extend his lead, second-placed Engel even came under pressure from Ford driver Maini in the early stages.
AMG youngster Kalender causes safety car phase
After around 20 minutes, Tom Kalender (Landgraf-Mercedes) triggered the first safety car phase of the race. The youngster crashed into the “Wall of Champions” and damaged the rear suspension in the process. Kalender initially continued, but shortly afterwards parked his Landgraf-AMG in the middle of the track.
Due to the yellow-flag phase, the opening of the pit-stop window was delayed. At the subsequent restart there were no changes of position, but shortly afterwards Engel was the first driver from the leading group to come in for the mandatory tire change.
The Winward-Mercedes driver rejoined the track directly in front of leader Thiim and tried to hold up the leader a little. With cold tires, however, that was hardly possible, so the Dane quickly got past and was then able to pull away decisively.
Then third-placed Maini also came in for his stop, although the tire change did not go perfectly and the HRT driver lost valuable seconds as a result. After the pit stop, Auer therefore initially moved past the Indian, who however reclaimed the position with a hard move in the Dutzendteich hairpin.
Nicki Thiim brings safe victory home
Pole-sitter Thiim was among the last drivers to pit for his mandatory tyre change, with the stop executed perfectly by the Comtoyou team. As a result, the Dane, who had come close to winning at the Lausitzring, rejoined the track ahead of Engel and managed to hold onto his position despite being on cold tyres.
At that point, however, the AMG driver was the fastest driver in the field and slowly worked his way up to Thiim, before the chase was initially stopped for around 50 minutes by the accident and the subsequent interruption.
After two laps behind the safety car, the race was released again for the final 15 minutes plus three laps: Thiim defended his lead ahead of Engel and Maini, while Thomas Preining was initially in fourth place.
In the closing laps, the Manthey-Porsche driver had to defend against attacks from his rivals, who overtook him one after another: First Auer went past, then Vermeulen, Wiebelhaus, Gounon and Bortolotti also moved ahead. Preining ultimately finished ninth and had clear words after the race about Porsche’s classification.
For former Formula 1 driver Timo Glock, the drama of the past few weeks continues at the Norisring as well: During the interruption, a defect was detected on his Dörr-McLaren, accompanied by an oil leak at the gearbox. It is even likely that this oil leak led to Paul’s off and the serious accident.
Thiim celebrates the second DTM victory of his career, once again at the Norisring. The Dane already took his maiden win on the street circuit two years ago, back then still in SSR Performance’s Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2. With his success, Thiim now writes another chapter of DTM history.
He is only the 15th driver in the series’ more than 40-year history to have won races with different brands. The curious twist: One of these 15 drivers is none other than his own father. Kurt Thiim celebrated DTM victories for Rover, BMW and Mercedes. A feat that Thiim has now at least partially repeated.
On Sunday, the second DTM race in Nuremberg is on the program: The starting grid will again be determined in the two-part qualifying session (from 9:00 a.m.), before the start lights for Sunday’s race at the Norisring turn green as usual at 1:30 p.m.
