DTM - Round 1 - Maiden victory for Guven, Pepper takes early lead of the championship

The opening round of the 2025 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters heads to Oschersleben, seeing Lucas Auer dominate in Saturday's race, and Ayhancan Güven successfully becomes the first Turkish DTM winner!

Contributions by Michael Pokomandy and Charlie Thornton

NEW SEASON, NEW CARS, NEW DRIVERS, NEW REGULATIONS!

After five months of waiting, the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters is finally back at Oschersleben for the opening two rounds of the season. The DTM, which has always been known as the largest German racing series, with German manufacturers such as Audi, BMW, Mercedes and Porsche battling it out, but 2025 is set to be different.

Audi, one of the biggest German manufacturers, was set to leave the series completely, but after a late withdrawal of the Allied Racing Porsches, team Land-Motorsport stepped in, and put Ricardo Feller in the single Audi to race in 2025. BMW has also reduced their entries, going from three to two cars with René Rast and Marco Wittmann. Mercedes on the other hand, have managed to stay even with their cars entered for this season, but HRT have switched to a new manufacturer, and Team Landgraf have taken their place, with Lucas Auer and rookie Tom Kalender filling their seats, while Maro Engel and Jules Gounon race for the Winward Racing AMG’s.

Speaking of HRT, also known as Haupt Racing Team, have made a bold decision to switch to operate the pretty new Ford Mustang GT3 for the 2025 season, with Arjun Maini and Fabio Scherer in the cockpits. Another newcomer to the series sees Comtoyou Racing enter two Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo’s for the season, with Belgian drivers Gilles Magnus and Nicolas Baert. The other British manufacturer, while not making their debut, will return with Dörr Motorsport, with Ben Dörr and former-Formula One driver Timo Glock, who returns to the championship full time for the first time since 2021, where he raced in the BMW M6 GT3 for ROWE Racing.

Porsche return to the championship, bringing more cars than 2024. Manthey have hired Ayhancan Güven and Thomas Preining for the main team, while the junior team have called up 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Morris Schuring. Ferrari and Lamborghini bring the Prancing Horse and Bull to the series with three Ferrari’s from Emil Frey Racing, with Jack Aitken and Thierry Vermeulen returning, while Ben Green makes his DTM debut. ABT Sportsline have moved from their Audi stable, and have taken on reigning champion Mirko Bortolotti, and his teammate from last year Nicki Thiim. SSR Performance have stepped back from the championship, but Grasser Racing Team have chosen Luca Engstler and Jordan Pepper for their Huracans, while Maximilian Paul will head his own team.

The drivers, teams and cars aren’t the only thing that have switched up for 2025, where we will see the race durations changed to 55 minutes instead of 60 minutes, while the Saturday race will remain a one stopper, but the Sunday race will have two mandatory pit stops.

QUALIFYING 1

The Saturday qualifying session was a big deal for the newcomers, especially for Ben Green in his Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3, where he went fastest around the Oschersleben track and grabbed his maiden pole. Unfortunately, it was later discovered that his car did not meet the weight limits, disqualifying him from the session, and would instead have to start at the back for his first race in DTM. Instead, it was Lucas Auer in his Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo who inherited pole position, while Jordan Pepper managed to get his Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2 onto the front row. 2023 DTM champion Thomas Preining managed to get his trusty Porsche 992 GT3 R, known as “Grello” into third, while Jules Gounon, who was making his full season debut, ended up fourth in his AMG.

RACE 1

Lucas Auer started the first race of the season on pole position, and led the field away for the first time in 2025, while on the opening lap, Thomas Preining, who started third, lost position to Jules Gounon. Arjun Maini was on a charge in his HRT Ford Mustang GT3, overtaking the rookie Tom Kalender for sixteenth position, just out of the points paying positions, but while overtaking he sustained some damage from the Porsche of Morris Schuring, who was looking to make in roots on his competitors. On the next lap, Maini finally got into the points by overtaking René Rast in his Schubert Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 Evo.

Ricardo Feller in the sole Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II headed into the pits when he thought the pit window was open, but unfortunately it was too early, which resulted in Feller requiring to pit again, or face a harsh time penalty at the end of the race. Meanwhile, once the window was open, reigning champion Mirko Bortolotti headed in to serve his pitstop, alongside Thierry Vermeulen and Timo Glock, followed by Jules Gounon who had been running in third by now. The next lap saw another wave of stoppers, with Lucas Auer pitting from the lead, with Jordan Pepper, Preining and Marco Wittmann all coming in too. Auer managed to have a smooth pitstop, and came out of the pits still ahead of Pepper.

Maro Engel briefly took the lead of the race, but came into the pits a few laps later, and once he came out, he was ahead of Auer and Pepper, but shortly after, was passed by the sister Mercedes and Lamborghini who were on tyres that had already warmed up. Drama came for Luca Engstler, as he was issued a penalty box lap for speeding in the pits, which when served, dropped him five positions due to the close battles he was involved in. Ben Green, who had his pole position taken from him and started from the back, eventually took lead of the race, but came into the pits with eighteen minutes remaining, while Rast was the final stopper, but unfortunately decided to retire the car due to a loss of power, something that the German had been suffering with since the start. Feller also decided to admit defeat and came into the pits again to serve his mandatory stop.

Lucas Auer and Team Landgraf took victory for the opening round of the season, seeing Auer’s tenth DTM victory, and ending a drought of wins that dates back to Hockenheimring in 2022. Jordan Pepper managed to finish just behind him, with Maro Engel making up two positions in the race to finish on the third step of the podium. Preining and Gounon finished fourth and fifth respectively. Both of the Comtoyou Racing Aston Martins were disqualified from the opening race, due to failing post-race weight checks, a disappointing debut for the British marque.

QUALIFYING 2

The Sunday qualifying session was suspiciously similar to Saturday, seeing another Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo grabbing pole, but this time it was Jules Gounon. Behind him, with a gap of 0.075 seconds was Jordan Pepper with another strong performance, while Thierry Vermeulen managed to get onto the second row, alongside Ayhancan Güven. Saturday’s pole-sitter and race-winner was only able to qualify in eighth position, a stark opposite to his performance from previously.

RACE 2

Jules Gounon led the field away from pole position, but Ayhancan Güven was on a charge, getting ahead of Thierry Vermeulen into third position, with Ricardo Feller in his Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II also looking to get ahead, but fails to do so. The opening lap was very dramatic, seeing Maro Engel in his Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo go off-track, forced wide by the Saturday race winner Lucas Auer. Stewards deemed the incident to be Auer’s fault, and was forced to drop back behind Engel, who was a couple positions behind.

With just over ten minutes of the race completed, the #8 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Nicolas Baert was in the tyre barrier at turn three, deploying the safety car, including the delay of the first pit window of the race. Once the race resumed, Gounon and Güven had a good restart, seeing Güven put pressure instantly onto Jordan Pepper in the Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2.

Once the first pit window opened, Auer, Maximilian Paul, Ben Green and Arjun Maini all took the opportunity to pit, seeing the Ferrari and Ford Mustang of Green and Maini both jump the Lamborghini of Paul. Meanwhile, the second large group of pitters saw the Audi of Feller, Porsche of Thomas Preining, and the Lamborghini of Nicki Thiim come in, but simultaneously the rookie driver Tom Kalender found himself in the gravel, just after he came out of the pits. Due to Kalender being in a long train of cars, the excursion saw him drop multiple positions.

Before the second pit stop window opened, Ayhancan Güven was leading by 2.5 seconds over René Rast, Gounon, Pepper, Preining, Marco Wittmann, Feller and Luca Engstler, and once it opened, Auer dived straight in, followed by Jack Aitken and Gilles Magnus. The next lap, Maro Engel and Mirko Bortolotti pitted, seeing the Lamborghini jump the Mercedes in the stops.

Less than ten minutes remained, and Thomas Preining made an incredible move around the outside of Rast, and got Jordan Pepper a few corners later, jumping into third position. Preining attempted to catch and pass Gounon, but he didn’t nudge, resulting in the Austrian having to settle for third.

Ayhancan Güven took the chequered flag and became the first Turkish driver to win a DTM race, he was followed by Gounon and Preining rounding out the podium. The Lamborghini’s of Jordan Pepper, Luca Engstler and Mirko Bortolotti finished fourth, seventh and ninth respectively, while the BMW’s of Rast and Wittmann finished fifth and sixth. Ben Dörr achieved his career best finish in the DTM, finishing eighth, while his teammate, Timo Glock retired from the race due to mechanical issues.

DRIVERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP

South African Lamborghini factory driver Jordan Pepper currently leads the championship after the first two races of the season, with 37 points, even without winning a race yet. Race two winner Ayhancan Güven sits equal on points with race one winner, Lucas Auer, and Jules Gounon, who all have 34 points. Thomas Preining sits fifth with 30 points, while Maro Engel has 20 points. 

TEAMS’ CHAMPIONSHIP

Manthey EMA currently leads the championship with 63 points, while Team Winward sit second with 51 points, followed by Grasser Racing Team with 48 points. All participating teams in the championship, other than Comtoyou Racing, have scored points, with HRT Ford Performance in eleventh with 2 points.

MANUFACTURERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP

Expectedly so, Mercedes-AMG lead the championship after Oschersleben with 68 points, just two points ahead of Porsche, and Lamborghini sit third with 50 points.

LAUSITZRING AWAITS

The next round of the 2025 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters heads to Lausitzring on the 24th and 25th May, where Jordan Pepper will attempt to keep control of the drivers’ championship after a successful opening event at Oschersleben.

Images © DTM