DTM Oschersleben: Perera takes Lamborghini's first win in season-opener

Apart from a brief period shortly after his pitstop, SSR Performance driver Perera was never threatened at the front of the field as he started his first full season in the DTM with a fine four-second victory.

Two-time DTM Trophy champion Tim Heinemann impressed on his step up to the DTM with a charging drive from seventh to second in his Toksport WRT Porsche, while Emil Frey driver Aitken recovered from a poor opening stint to take the final spot on the rostrum in his first race with the new 296 GT3.

As the first DTM race under new owner ADAC got underway, Perera made a clean start from pole position to lead into the opening set of corners, with SSR team-mate Mirko Bortolotti getting the jump on Aitken to establish a Lamborghini 1-2 at the front of the pack.

Abt Audi driver Ricardo Feller also passed Aitken by the end of the opening lap, Heinemann following suit with a physical move on lap two before being asked to hand back the position.

The order at the front remained the same until the pitstop sequence, with Aitken the first among the leading group to complete his mandatory tyre change and Heinemann the next to follow him on lap 24.

Perera waited until lap 27 for his stop, which reduced his advantage to just over a second over Heinemann. He had jumped Aitken, Feller and Bortolotti in the pits to move up to second.

While the threat from Heinemann looked genuine at that point, Perera managed to get his tyres up to temperature and pulled away once again as the Frenchman's stormed to victory on just his second DTM race start.

The win for Perera, who made a one-off appearance at the Norisring last year as a replacement for Rolf Iniechen at Grasser Racing, also marked an ideal start to SSR Performance’s partnership with Lamborghini following its switch from Porsche over the winter and ends Lamborghini’s wait for its first series win.

Aitken rounded off the podium spots in his and Emil Frey's first DTM start, the Briton finishing another four seconds adrift of Heinemann as three different manufacturers finished on the podium.

Perera took the lead at the start and dominated thereafter, while Bortolotti fell back

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

Feller took fourth after a long battle with his former team-mate Rene Rast, passing the three-time DTM champion's Schubert BMW with just three laps to go.

Kelvin van der Linde rose from 10th on the grid to finish sixth in the other Abt Audi, ahead of the top Team Bernhard Porsche of Laurin Heinrich.

Bortolotti stopped for fresh tyres just one lap later than Perera but dropped back to finish a disappointing eighth and 18s behind his team-mate.

Porsche drivers occupied the next three positions, with Christian Engelhart in the Toksport WRT leading the two Manthey EMA cars of Dennis Olsen and Thomas Preining.

Both Manthey EMA cars suffered botched pitstops, with Preining particularly losing time with a problem fitting a new left-front tyre on his Porsche 911 GT3 R that had started sixth.

However, they still managed to finish inside the points in 10th and 11th, ahead of the Grasser Lamborghini of Clemens Schmid.

Mercedes endured a torrid start, with Landgraf driver Maro Engel the best AMG representative in 13th ahead of team-mate Jusuf Owega.

Thierry Vermeulen rounded out the points finishers for Emil Frey in 15th.

Reigning champion Sheldon van der Linde suffered a nightmare start to his title defence that saw him initially slip down to 21st place, before a pitstop fumble compounded his misery. Schubert eventually wheeled back his BMW to the garage to retire.

Two-time DTM champion and Project 1 driver Marco Wittmann also failed to finish in what was overall a tough day for BMW.

DTM Oschersleben race results (44 laps)

Cla	Driver		Car	Time
1	Frank Perera		Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	-
2	Tim Heinemann		Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	3.987
3	Jack Aitken		Ferrari 296 GT3	4.090
4	Ricardo Feller		Audi R8 LMS Evo II	4.573
5	René Rast		BMW M4 GT3	2.939
6	Kelvin van der Linde		Audi R8 LMS Evo II	1.256
7	Laurin Heinrich		Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	0.423
8	Mirko Bortolotti		Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	0.473
9	Christian Engelhart		Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	1.012
10	Dennis Olsen		Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	3.269
11	Thomas Preining		Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	0.579
12	Clemens Schmid		Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	2.482
13	Maro Engel		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	0.265
14	Jusuf Owega		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	3.733
15	Thierry Vermeulen		Ferrari 296 GT3	7.337
16	Lucas Auer		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	2.561
17	Luca Engstler		Audi R8 LMS Evo II	0.863
18	David Schumacher		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	3.492
19	Alessio Deledda		Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	38.987
	Ayhancan Güven		Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	4 laps
	Arjun Maini		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	13 laps
	Sheldon Van Der Linde		BMW M4 GT3	1'17.725
	Marco Wittmann		BMW M4 GT3	3 laps
	Patric Niederhauser		Audi R8 LMS Evo II	7 laps
	Mick Wishofer		Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2	1'37.573
	Mattia Drudi		Audi R8 LMS Evo II	5 laps
	Luca Stolz		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	7 laps
View full results