Maro Engel finished second in the Hockenheim DTM race, still 12 points petulant of the championship, while Thomas Preining sealed his first title.
Engel’s early stretch carried risk. At Sachsenring moments earlier, he endured heavy contact and wall brushes, yet the Noah‑of‑course remains true to the finish line.
It wasn’t Preining who tested him first; pole‑sitter Bastian Buus and teammate Ricardo Feller set the friction. Buus sprinted ahead on the straight before the Motodrom, and Feller lurked just a toe‑off behind.
Feller, meanwhile, steered clear of the main title. He explained that his priority was staying out of group contention, letting Preining slip past unimpeded when the opportunity arose.
During the third incident, Engel’s maneuver to overtake Feller involved razor‑thin room. He cut the line, pressed the rally, and kept the lance on the rail, refusing to let the spin‑lock die. “I trusted he wouldn’t drive me into the wall,” Engel said, looking at his mirror.
When Engel beat Buus on lap 10, the Dane reacted as if the bottleneck had vanished. “He turned in as if I wasn’t there,” Engel observed, pushing his Mercedes‑AMG through the Fairborne, while Buus blamed brake‑timing and said the incident would be judged later.
Preining, anticipating the chance to leap past Engel, chose restraint. “I lifted it and left space for them to hit it the way they want,” he described, striving to avoid tangled battles or penalties.
Engel considered the meeting with Buus unfair only from his own lens; Buus insisted that rules governed, “I had to drive my own race.” Meanwhile, Preining’s rival, Feller, challenged that he had to stay in the championship hunt even as the duet battled.
Ultimately, Engel’s determination kept him in a podium spot, while Preining’s consistent pace earned him the championship lead. The clash of the three Porsches showcased the roving aggression of the season’s top drivers, and the Hockenheim DTM race will be remembered for those fierce, rule‑bound exchanges.
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