2023-09-20 05:00:00
“Be quick and don’t make mistakes.” Thomas Preining’s match plan for the upcoming DTM race weekend at the Red Bull Ring near Spielberg sounds simple. It’s just stupid that 25 other drivers are planning to do something similar. What the 25-year-old Porsche works driver from Linz has ahead of his colleagues: The Red Bull Ring is his favorite “car racing track”; he has five victories in three different classes (Formula 4, Porsche Supercup, DTM) in Styria already reached the goal. “It’s time for the sixth Bull Trophy,” says Preining, who wants to regain the lead in the DTM overall standings with home advantage.
After twelve of 16 races, Mirko Bortolotti (Lamborghini/173 points), who drives with an Italian license and is nine points ahead of Preining, who recently consistently finished in the points and two weeks ago at the Sachsenring with second and fourth place, has a chance for the title kept alive. Before the home game in Spielberg, his Porsche is given some relief from the Manthey team – he is allowed to “drop” five kilos.
“I can’t say yet how this will affect. But the layout of the Red Bull Ring with the hotspots for overtaking and the hard braking zones is cool. This track suits me,” says Preining, who lives in Styria, “for everyone will have a “good weekend”. Why? Preining: “My family, friends and many fans will be there. Of course that’s particularly motivating.”
The Viennese “Ice Cream Man”
DTM leader Bortolotti, as the current winner of the Sachsenring, has to carry 25 kilos of additional weight in the first of the two races at the Red Bull Ring. “It’s all very close together. It’s going to be hard work,” says the 33-year-old, whose parents run several ice cream parlors on Vienna’s Mariahilferstrasse.
The relationship with his title rival Preining seems a bit cold. “We’re not friends, we only meet on the race track, but we respect each other,” says the man from Linz, who is at least as cool as the Viennese “ice cream man” with the Italian racing license.
Author
Christoph Zöpfl
Head of sports department
Christoph Zöpfl
1695188104
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