Engel fastest in DTM testing at Red Bull Ring
Maro Engel topped testing with a time of 1:28.117 ahead of 2022 DTM champions Sheldon van der Linde. Engel, now in the Landgraf Mannfilter Mamba livery switched from GruppeM and was on of the 3 Mercedes factory drivers taking part in the test. Arjun Maini, a Mercedes junior completed the top 3.
All four Lamborghini cars finished outside of the top 10 suggesting that they might struggle later this season when DTM comes back to race at the Red Bull Ring.
Rene Rast, Kelvin van der Linde and Riccardo Feller made up the top 3 on the first day of the test on Saturday, however lacked the pace to be in the top 5 the next day, finishing 7th, 9th and 8th respectivelly.
Jack Aitken, former Williams F1 team reserve driver finished 12th on the first day and 19th on the second.
Maro Engel and 3 other drivers were not present on the Saturday of the tests due to a calendar clash with the NLS (Nurburgring endurance series), which had a 6 hour race that day. Another calendar clash posed an issue for Mirko Bortolotti, who was participating in the 6 hours of Portimao (World Endurance Championship) that weekend with the Prema Team.
Here are the day 2 results:
Position Driver, Team - Time
1 Maro Engel, Landgraf-Mercedes - 1:28.117
2 Sheldon van der Linde, Schubert-BMW - 1:28.138
3 Arjun Maini, HRT-Mercedes - 1:28.363
4 Ayhancan Güven, Bernhard-Porsche - 1:28.388
5 Marco Wittmann, Project-1-BMW - 1:28.403
6 Jusuf Owega, Landgraf-Mercedes - 1:28.406
7 Rene Rast, Schubert-BMW - 1:28.417
8 Ricardo Feller, Abt-Audi - 1:28.463
9 Kelvin van der Linde, Abt-Audi - 1:28.481
10 Luca Stolz, HRT-Mercedes - 1:28.494
11 Dennis Olsen, Manthey-EMA-Porsche - 1:28.577
12 Thomas Preining, Manthey-EMA-Porsche - 1:28.603
13 Laurin Heinrich, Bernhard-Porsche - 1:28.611
14 David Schumacher, Winward-Mercedes - 1:28.741
15 Tim Heinemann, Toksport-WRT-Porsche - 1:28.777
16 Luca Engstler, Engstler-Audi - 1:28.787
17 Mick Wishofer, Grasser-Lamborghini - 1:28.795
18 Clemens Schmid, Grasser-Lamborghini - 1:28.935
19 Jack Aitken, Emil-Frey-Ferrari - 1:28.943
20 Franck Perera, SSR-Lamborghini - 1:28.980
21 Thierry Vermeulen, Emil-Frey-Ferrari - 1:28.994
22 Christian Engelhart, Toksport-WRT-Porsche - 1:29.053
23 Sandy Mitchell, SSR-Lamborghini - 1:29.132
24 Alessio Deledda, SSR-Lamborghini - 1:29.853
25 Dev Gore/Esteban Muth, Project-1-BMW - 1:29.874