Tyre wear "a massive worry" for van der Linde in Lausitzring DTM win

The Schubert Motorsport BMW driver, who beat HRT Mercedes driver Luca Stolz in Saturday's opening race to claim the new-for-2022 M4 GT3's first series win, came under increasing pressure in the closing stages of the second race from Engel's Gruppe M Mercedes but held on to secure victory by 0.347 seconds.

After pitting on lap nine, van der Linde had to nurse his Michelin rubber for a further 31 laps and revealed his rear tyres were "completely giving up" during the final five tours.

"It was a massive worry the whole race," said the South African of his tyre concerns.

"I tried to still manage it in the beginning after the pitstop obviously in the second stint because I knew it was going to be a long one, we all boxed quite early to avoid the undercut from some cars behind me.

"And I knew I had to try and manage the tyre but at the same time I had to keep the gap to Maro. It was really hard, especially at the end.

"We have this light system on the DDU [driver display unit] and I literally just saw lights, it looked like a Christmas tree in my car! So yeah, honestly I don’t know how I did it."

Engel told Autosport that he "nearly lost the car in Turn 1 on the second last lap" trying to close the gap to van der Linde.

Podium: Race winner Sheldon van der Linde, Schubert Motorsport

Photo by: DTM

"I was close, but just not quite close enough to make a move into Turn 8 [on the last lap]," he said.

"I thought about it, but it definitely wouldn’t have been one without contact, so I decided to take the points."

Van der Linde stressed that, despite his form, the Lausitzring "is still not one of my favourite tracks" and said he "really can’t tell you" why he has historically performed so well at the east-German venue.

He took his first DTM podium at the track in 2020 and also claimed pole last year in the previous generation BMW M6 GT3.

"I don’t really have the perfect answer for that," he said.

"Lausitzring has always been good to me, every year I’ve managed to perform.

"I don’t know what it is, I really can’t tell you, and even if I did know what it is I wouldn’t give my secrets away!

"Lausitzring is still not one of my favourite tracks I have to say, but it has always been good to me so I have nothing bad to say about it!"