Kelvin van der Linde regained the lead in the DTM standings with two outstanding races at the Nürburgring. On Saturday, the ABT driver secured a superior victory by more than 15 seconds from pole position in the rain. On Sunday he extended his lead in the overall standings with an unexpected fourth place.
The weekend at the Nürburgring did not start well for Kelvin van der Linde. A technical problem with his Audi R8 LMS GT3 evo II caused massive understeer. The team managed to fix the problem before the second free practice session.
In qualifying for the first race on Saturday, van der Linde secured pole position with a strong final lap – 21 thousandths of a second ahead of championship leader Mirco Bortolotti. Just in time for the race, it started to rain at the Nürburgring and the ABT driver was in a class of his own on the wet track. With consistently fast lap times, van der Linde was able to pull away from his rivals and open up an unusually large lead for DTM standards. He also set the fastest lap shortly before the end of the race.
In the second race on Sunday, van der Linde was hit on the rear by a rival in the heat of the first corner. As a result, he dropped from sixth to twelfth. The fact that he was able to work his way back up to fourth with the damaged car and 20 kilograms of extra weight was greeted with similar excitement in the ABT Sportsline garage as after van der Linde’s victory on Saturday. However, the team could not be sure until the very end on Sunday: Shortly before the end of the race, van der Linde reported a loss of pressure in a tyre over the radio. Fortunately, the tyre held until the finish.
In the overall DTM standings, Kelvin van der Linde turned a five-point deficit into a seven-point lead at the Nürburgring weekend. His team-mate Ricardo Feller is seventh in the standings after a difficult weekend. In the teams’ championship ABT Sportsline is 19 points behind BMW Team Schubert Motorsport.
The exciting and highly competitive 2024 DTM season continues on 7/8 September at the Sachsenring – one of Kelvin van der Linde’s favourite race tracks.
Martin Tomczyk (ABT Motorsport Director): “It was an exciting but also successful DTM weekend for ABT Sportsline. We saw two great racing performances from Kelvin – once on Saturday in the rain, where he literally walked on water. But also on Sunday with the success weight and a difficult position after the contact in turn one. To drive so calm afterwards, to move up to fourth place with a good strategy and to maintain this position was superb. Unfortunately, Ricky didn’t get off to such a good start to the weekend, but he always fought hard and did the best he could. But of course, his expectations are different.”
Kelvin van der Linde (Saturday 1st/Sunday 4th, 41 points): “What a weekend! Thanks to the whole team for the great support! Saturday’s race was probably my best in the DTM so far. But my team also provided me with a superb car and did a perfect job. I was almost even happier about the result on Sunday, because after the first lap I really thought it was over. But we stayed calm and worked our way back up to fourth. That was crazy!”
Ricardo Feller (Saturday 9th/Sunday 8th, 17 points): “The whole weekend was disappointing for me – I just didn’t have the pace. Under the difficult conditions in qualifying on Sunday, I was fortunately able to set a small exclamation mark with second place. But in the race I dropped back step by step. We have to analyse this, because I don’t understand it at the moment.”
Published by: ABT Sportsline
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