Qualifying
Nico Müller was the only driver to post a sub-1m 40s lap time in qualifying for race 2 at Portimao and secured pole position with a time of 1m 39.794s.
With the sixth pole position of his DTM career, Müller ended a drought: the last time he was first on the grid was on 13 September 2020, no less than 595 days ago: “This is a very nice feeling,” Müller said. “When you are testing in winter and completing your laps all on your own, you don’t really know how good it is. Admittedly, the feeling was always good, but now getting the confirmation is making me really happy, especially for the guys who have been working so hard.”
Second-fastest, Mirko Bortolotti will be starting from the front row for the second consecutive day, having already secured Lamborghini’s first-ever pole position in DTM on Saturday. Felipe Fraga again confirmed his good form with third-fastest time in the Red Bull Ferrari. Just one-thousandth of a second further down, Sheldon van der Linde qualified fourth with the new BMW M4 from two Mercedes-AMG drivers Lucas Auer and Luca Stolz. Behind them, the Walkenhorst BMW of Marco Wittmann , the two Team ABT Sportsline Audi teammates Kelvin van der Linde and Ricado Feller and defending champion Maximilian Götz ( rounded out the top ten. The best-placed Porsche driver was Laurens Vanthoor, eleventh on the grid in his SSR Performance 911 GT3R.
Race 2
It was Nico Müller all the way in the second DTM race of the 2022 season scoring the eleventh race win of his DTM career at Portimão on Sunday.
The 30-year-old finished ahead of Felipe Fraga with the Red Bull AF Corse Ferrari., the Brazilian winning the Autohero Fastest Lap Award with a lap in 1:41.681s and therefore scored an additional championship point. Mirko Bortolotti finished third once again with the GRT Lamborghini. In the overall standings, the Italian is leading with 35 points from Müller (28 points) and Lucas Auer (AUT/26 points).
Having already been fastest during qualifying in the morning, Müller defended his lead at the start of the race against Bortolotti.
The Championship runner-up of 2019 and 2020 was delighted with his first DTM race win since November 2020 at Hockenheim. “I am just very happy, we have worked so hard for this. We know how tough this championship is this year, so that is making us even happier for having achieved this victory.”
Among those who made up ground in the second race were Walkenhorst BMW driver Marco Wittmann, who moved up from seventh to fourth place, and defending champion Maximilian Götz, who had started from tenth place with the WINWARD Mercedes-AMG and ended up fifth, followed by Kelvin van der Linde with the Team ABT Sportsline Audi. The best-placed Porsche driver was Belgian Laurens Vanthoor for SSR Performance in seventh, an improvement from 11th on the grid.
The previous day’s race winner had bad luck: Lucas Auer had to come into the pits a second time, only one lap after his mandatory pit stop and finished in 22nd place.
Sébastien Loeb finished in 18th place with the AlphaTauri AF Corse Ferrari. Three places ahead of him was David Schumacher, who led for a long time by virtue of a long first stint and eventually made up nine places, advancing from 24th on the grid to finish 15th.
After a pair of third-place finishes, points leader Bortolotti drew a positive verdict from the opening weekend: “Yesterday felt like a defeat, but today feels a bit like victory. It was a hard-fought race, no doubt. Now, I am really looking forward to Lausitzring. The track was always good for me in the past years, although the DTM version is even more challenging with Turn 1.”
