Kelvin van der Linde, having started from pole position, claimed his third win of the season in impressive style with the ABT Sportsline Audi at the Nurburgring and extended his lead in the drivers’ standings.
As the best-placed guest driver, Luca Stolz with the Mercedes-AMG of Toksport WRT team secured second place on the podium, ahead of Philip Ellis with the WINWARD Mercedes-AMG.
Later though Stolz would have his second place taken away as he was given a 30-second time penalty. During his pit stop, there had been an incident with a mechanic of the GruppeM Racing team. While approaching his pit position, he had hit a mechanic of the other team.
Mike Rockenfeller, initially classified fourth, was promoted to third.
There were 23 cars on the grid for the first time in the reformatted DTM with Porsche making its début in the Series, but Michael Ammermüller was out of the race on lap 1 with his SSR Performance 911.
“I am enjoying every second this season. It has taken me so long to finally make it into DTM. I kept knocking on the door at Audi asking whether they had a DTM seat available for me. Now, I am even happier to be racing against these strong guys”, Kelvin van der Linde said.
At the Nürburgring, the 25-year-old from South Africa even pulled off a hattrick: he claimed pole position, posted the fastest lap time of the race and secured victory. “It was an intense race. At the start and the restart, I was able to stay in front and keep the lead. Only after the tyre change, I had to fight hard. There was some contact, too, there are some hard battles out there. I kept it cool and remained calm.”
Van der Linde extended his points’ lead to 129 points, Maximilian Götz, who scored twelve points on Saturday, bringing his total to 84, has now moved up into second while Liam Lawson (Red Bull Ferrari, AF Corse) didn’t score and dropped back to third in the standings (80).
At the start van der Linde had the better line and defended his pole position against Ellis’s white-and-blue WINWARD Mercedes. Everything went smoothly until the short loop of the sprint circuit, Maximilian Buhk was tapped into a spin with the Mücke Mercedes-AMG, which prompted a safety car intervention. As well as Buhk, Christopher Haase with the Rosberg Audi and Michael Ammermüller were also among the victims of the opening lap and retired early.
The restart again saw van der Linde defend the lead while the two Mercedes-AMGs with Ellis and Stolz battled behind him.
The race saw numerous battles in the field with hard overtaking manoeuvres.
Due to varying strategies for the mandatory pit stops, a handful of drivers racked up laps in the lead. Local hero Mike Rockenfeller led the field for the longest time with the ABT Audi as he delayed his pit stop as long as he could with Philip Ellis, Alex Albon and Luca Stolz battling for the podium positions and Liam Lawson, Markus Winkelhock and Daniel Juncadella fighting for points behind.
Winkelhock, who was replacing Le Mans cup-tied Sophia Flörsch in the ABT Audi with Space Drive steering, eventually incurred a drive-through penalty as he had caused a spin for the Lawson Ferrari.
Rockenfeller was the last to come in for fresh tyres after 31 laps and the road was clear for his teammate Kelvin van der Linde to collect his third win of the season.
Just before the start of the race, all the DTM drivers and team principals had assembled in front of the grandstand at the end of the start and finish straight. With a “Thank you to everybody who has helped out” banner and a minute of silence, drivers, team principals and spectators remembered the victims of the flooding disaster on 14 and 15 July, especially in the Ahr valley close to the Nürburgring.
