Ferrari Emil Frey driver Jack Aitken led from start to complete in the primary race on the Sachsenring, taking his third victory of the 2024 DTM season.
After taking pole position following a five-place grid penalty for Thomas Preining, the 28-year-old Aitken easily held off rivals to cross the road with a 1.8-second lead.
Lamborghini factory driver Mirko Bortolotti of the SSR Performance team took second place, taking the championship lead from Abt Audi driver Kelvin van der Linde, while Winward Mercedes driver Maro Engel finished third, improving his own title probabilities.
Early within the race Aitken moved to the left to cover Bortolotti in front, while HRT driver Luca Stolz maintained third place within the leading Mercedes cars.
Further back, Engel passed Stolz's team-mate Arjun Maini to take fourth, while van der Linde moved from tenth to seventh on the primary lap, limiting the losses attributable to poor qualifying.
Meanwhile, Aitken steadily increased his advantage over Bortolotti, extending it to 2 seconds in only nine laps. When the pit stop window opened after 20 minutes of racing, the British driver had built up a lead of greater than 4 seconds, such was his pace within the Ferrari 296 GT3.
Bortolotti tried to undercut Aitken by entering the pits relatively early on lap 16, forcing the latter to cover him for the subsequent race. Emil Frey was also slow to vary front tyres, costing him as much as two seconds.
However, the advantage that Aitken had built up in the primary stage was so large that he managed to return to the track along with his advantage intact, although Bortolotti was hot on his heels as his tyres were already running hot.
Ultimately, Aitken managed to overtake Bortolotti again to take his fourth DTM profession victory, proving he was an outdoor contender for the championship.
Mirko Bortolotti, SSR Performance Lamborghini Huracán EVO GT3
Photo: Alexander Trienitz
Bortolotti was classified a distant second, but van der Linde, who finished eighth, achieved this result to regain control of the championship with a six-point lead.
Third place within the race went to Engel, who overtook Mercedes teammate Stolz to take the ultimate podium spot with an excellent move around the surface of Turn 2 on lap 12.
Maini finished fifth behind team-mate Stolz, with Mercedes securing three cars in the highest five.
Meanwhile, reigning DTM champion Thomas Preining claimed a solid sixth place, winning a protracted and shut duel with van der Linde and overtaking the Audi driver on lap 35 at Turn 1.
Towards the tip of the race Van der Linde was overtaken by BMW Schubert driver Rene Rast, who took an incredible step forward, overtaking his rivals behind the sphere to take seventh place.
Rast, who also received a five-place grid penalty for 3 cautions, was already thirteenth on the grid and ran long in the primary stage, ending his pit stop on lap 28.
Thanks to brisker tyres for the last a part of the race he even managed to get near Preining, but ultimately he was content with seventh place.
Rast’s team-mate Sheldon van der Linde finished ninth, just behind his brother Kelvin, after each drivers battled for position in the ultimate laps of the race.
DTM debutant Jordan Pepper accomplished the highest ten for Team Grassera Lamborghini, replacing the injured Christian Engelhart, beating Emil Frey's second Ferrari driver Thierry Vermeulen and Mercedes' last placed driver Lucas Auer.
Marco Wittmann damaged the left front panel of his BMW in a first-lap incident with Luca Engstler, which contributed to his difficult run to thirteenth place. The final points places went to SSR Performance driver Nicki Thiim and Maximilian Paul from Paul Motorsport.
DTM Sachsenring – First Race Results
