Mirko Bortolotti has been gifted victory in the second DTM race in Oschersleben as the Grasser Lamborghini driver worked his way up to second place with an overcut at the first pitstop and then benefited from a botched pitstop by Manthey Porsche for Thomas Preining.
Preining suffered double disappointment as he also lost second place to Winward Mercedes' Maro Engel, and just about held off Marco Wittmann in the Schubert BMW for third place.
Polesitter Preining initially held the lead after a battle with Luca Engstler and by the time the first pitstop window opened, Preining – who, following his victory the previous day, had to race with 20kg of success ballast – had already built up a lead of just over a second.
But it was Bortolotti who benefited from a late first stop and moved into the victory fight. Despite a light rain shower at the halfway point of the race Bortolotti managed to reduce the gap to leader Preining to less than one second.
But it was the second pitstop which proved decisive. The top four came in together for the final tyre change, but Preining's stop went wrong due to a problem with the left-rear tyre.
Maro Engel, Mercedes-AMG Team Ravenol Mercedes-AMG EVO GT3
Photo by: ADAC Motorsport
The Manthey Porsche driver lost valuable time in the pits and, as a result, dropped back to third place.
Bortolotti duly defended the lead from Engel to take victory, but second place was enough for the Winward Mercedes driver to extend his lead in the DTM standings to 21 points over Nicki Thiim.
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3.027
3.431
3.640
5.467
8.103
10.362
11.594
18.372
18.803
19.146
19.997
20.672
21.159
22.027
22.369
22.736
23.987
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- The Autosport.com Team
Source: Autosport