A week and a half before the Zandvoort comeback after a four-year break, eight of the 14 DTM teams took the opportunity for a private test day. And at least the times from Tuesday indicate that the Porsche Festival could continue in the DTM: Manthey EMA Porsche driver Dennis Olsen was fastest in 1:33.560 in summer temperatures of almost 30 degrees, 0.090 seconds ahead of teammate Thomas Preining .
For comparison: Jack Aitken set a pole time of 1:33.471 in the 2022 ADAC GT Masters in the Emil Frey Lamborghini. The next driver in a 911 GT3 R, Toksport WRT driver Christian Engelhart, followed in third place. The Oschersleben winner, who only drove in the afternoon, was 0.231 seconds behind Olsen.
The best non-Porsche driver was Maro Engel in fourth, 0.475 seconds behind. However, the result should be treated with caution, because the Abt team is the big unknown: The squad was also there with the Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, but drove without a transponder, which is why the times are unknown.
Muffler in action again
The fact that the test was so popular and that, in addition to all three Porsche and Mercedes-AMG teams, the BMW team Project 1 and Abt were also at the start, has to do with the fact that the track hardly offers any testing opportunities due to the noise restrictions.
As in the previous year, the teams had to equip their cars with silencers in the Imola test in order not to exceed the limit values. This created additional challenges, as on a few occasions the mufflers became detached from the cars, disrupting the testing work.
Only Porsche drivers complete more than 100 laps
The Porsche teams were not only the fastest, but also the most diligent. They were the only ones to do more than 100 laps per vehicle in the approximately seven hours of testing: Toksport-WRT surprise rookie Tim Heinemann was the absolute marathon man with 124 laps, Preining and Olsen also clocked up a good amount of kilometers with 118 and 104 laps.
The intensive test program is nothing new for Preining, because the pre-season tests with the “Grello” were already demanding for the DTM newcomers. “You’re in the car all day, only get out to go to the toilet and for lunch,” he told Motorsport-Total.com before the Zandvoort test. “You’re done after that, but that’s good for something.”
Laurin Heinrich and Ayhancan Güven, who shared the Bernhard Porsche in Heinrich’s design, also completed 89 laps together.
Surprise by GT3 newcomer Sandro Holzem
As the best BMW driver, Marco Wittmann finished fifth behind Engel. The two-time champion was 0.536 seconds down and completed just 27 laps. But the only 18-year-old Sandro Holzem caused a surprise in the second Project 1 BMW, which appeared for the first time with a white-grey-yellow sticker.
The GT3-inexperienced youngster, who is to be introduced to the first DTM outings this season by Hans-Bernd Kamps’ team with tests and guest starts in the ADAC GT Masters, was only 0.537 seconds slower than Wittmann, although he only managed 29 laps came. That’s a significant improvement compared to his first test in Oschersleben, where he missed several seconds.
In addition, he left the regular DTM drivers Heinemann, David Schumacher, Lucas Auer and Arjun Maini behind. However, the fact that this is a test and the fuel quantities and programs were completely unclear should not be interpreted too much into the times.
Schubert, HRT and Engstler already tested in March
Apart from that, there were always irregularities in the split times at Heinemann. And the balance of performance for the race weekend in Zandvoort has not yet been published either, which is why the cars were not tested under race conditions.
It was noticeable that Torsten Schubert’s BMW champion squad, who tested more than almost any other team last year, was absent from Zandvoort. This is probably due to the fact that the team already had a test day there at the beginning of March with Sheldon van der Linde and Rene Rast’s substitute Dries Vanthoor.
Only four teams completely forgo the Zandvoort test
At that time, Franz Engstler’s Audi team and the HRT squad were also on the test. After the false start in Oschersleben, the Mercedes-AMG team led by Ulrich Fritz is leaving nothing to chance this time and has been testing in Zandvoort for the second time.
The Ferrari team Emil Frey Racing, which has a lot of data from last year’s victories in the ADAC GT Masters, the Audi team Attempto and the two Lamborghini teams SSR and Grasser were the only racing teams that did not test in Zandvoort at all.
The test was originally planned for Grasser, but after the ADAC GT Masters outing in Hockenheim the team decided to prepare the cars for Zandvoort and the 24 Hours of Spa in Austria the following week.
Test times from June 13th in Zandvoort:
1. Dennis Olsen (Manthey-EMA-Porsche) 1:33.560 (104 laps)
2. Thomas Preining (Manthey-EMA-Porsche 1:33.650 (118)
3. Christian Engelhart (Toksport-WRT-Porsche) 1:33.791 (53)**
4. Maro Engel (Landgraf-Mercedes) 1:34.035 (84)
5. Marco Wittmann (Project 1 BMW) 1:34.096 (27)
6. Laurin Heinrich (Bernhard Porsche) 1:34.208 (43)*
7. Ayhancan Güven (Bernhard-Porsche) 1:34.372 (46)**
8. Yusuf Owega (Landgraf-Mercedes) 1:34.472 (59)
9. Luca Stolz (HRT Mercedes) 1:34.516 (69)
10. Sandro Holzem (Project-1-BMW) 1:34.633 (29)
11. Tim Heinemann (Toksport WRT Porsche 1:34.642 (124)
12. David Schumacher (Winward Mercedes) 1:34.915 (78)
13. Lucas Auer (Winward Mercedes) 1:34.954 (83)
13. Arjun Maini (HRT Mercedes) 1:34.954 (75)
Abt-Team without transponder *morning only **afternoon only