Sheldon van der Linde took his first DTM victory of 2022 at the Lausitzring after passing poleman Lucas Auer at the start. He held the net lead through the pitstop phase after pitting one lap later than Auer. He took the flag 3.59 seconds clear of Luca Stolz’s HRT Mercedes to become the third different driver from many manufacturers to win this season.

The first series win for the new BMW M4 GT3 and Schubert Motorsport was on only its third DTM start. South African van der Linde took a wide line approaching the banked Turn 1 at the start and swept ahead of Auer’s Winward Mercedes, with a fast-starting Stolz moving into third ahead of teammate Arjun Maini.

Van der Linde began to open up a lead at the front and was a shade over two seconds clear when Auer broke up the status quo by pitting on lap seven as the window opened.

But a slight delay in the pits for Auer meant he emerged behind Stolz, and when van der Linde responded with his own pitstop one lap later, he remained ahead of the Mercedes pair.

A brief mid-race rain shower threatened to hurt the early stoppers, with Nick Cassidy (Red Bull Ferrari) staying ahead of two-time DTM champion Marco Wittmann (Walkenhorst BMW), but never progressed to a point where drivers would consider taking wets.

What a start from @SheldonvdLinde 💥💥#DTM #DTM2022 #WeLoveDTM #FeelTheRoar #DTMLausitzring pic.twitter.com/8pfaESgFVI

— DTM (@DTM) May 21, 2022

Van der Linde continued to stretch his advantage out front and never came under threat from Stolz behind as he secured a first DTM win since Assen 2020, while Auer completed the podium in third.

Maini held onto fourth place to the finish on a strong day for HRT, while Maro Engel (GruppeM Mercedes) was left to rue being shuffled back from third to sixth at the start as he finished fifth.

Pre-event championship leader Mirko Bortolotti (GRT Lamborghini) also had a bad start, dropping back from ninth to 13th on the opening lap, but recovered to sixth as several drivers dropped out with punctures.

Ricardo Feller (Abt Audi) was running ahead of the Italian when he suffered a right-rear failure on the straight and retired on-track, while Felipe Fraga – who had run fifth early on – also retired due to a problem with the right rear that had forced an extra stop.

Abt’s three-time DTM champion Rene Rast scored the first points of his series return in eighth after being outmuscled by Laurens Vanthoor’s SSR Porsche for seventh, as late-stopper Cassidy and defending champion Maxi Gotz (Winward Mercedes) completed the points.

Cla		#	Driver		Car	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Pits	Points
1		31	Sheldon Van Der Linde		BMW M4 GT3	36	56’48.270				25
2		4	Luca Stolz		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	36	56’51.860	3.590	3.590		18
3		22	Lucas Auer		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	36	56’53.697	5.427	1.837		15
4		36	Arjun Maini		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	36	56’56.022	7.752	2.325		12
5		88	Maro Engel		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	36	56’57.412	9.142	1.390		10
6		63	Mirko Bortolotti		Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo	36	57’01.924	13.654	4.512		8
7		92	Laurens Vanthoor		Porsche 911 GT3 R	36	57’05.847	17.577	3.923		6
8		33	René Rast		Audi R8 LMS Evo II	36	57’07.326	19.056	1.479		4
9		37	Nick Cassidy		Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020	36	57’07.573	19.303	0.247		2
10		1	Maximilian Götz		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	36	57’09.695	21.425	2.122		1
11		18	Maximilian Buhk		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	36	57’11.219	22.949	1.524
12		10	Esteban Muth		BMW M4 GT3	36	57’22.700	34.430	11.481
13		95	Nicki Thiim		Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo	36	57’25.334	37.064	2.634
14		19	Rolf Ineichen		Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo	36	57’26.523	38.253	1.189
15		66	Marius Zug		Audi R8 LMS Evo II	36	57’29.526	41.256	3.003
16		12	Dev Gore		Audi R8 LMS Evo II	36	57’37.803	49.533	8.277
17		85	Clemens Schmid		Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo	36	57’38.090	49.820	0.287
18		26	Esmee Hawkey		Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo	36	58’08.869	1’20.599	30.779
19		6	Alessio Deledda		Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo	35	57’17.536	1 Lap	1 Lap
	dnf	24	Thomas Preining		Porsche 911 GT3 R	29	46’20.900	7 Laps	6 Laps
	dnf	51	Nico Müller		Audi R8 LMS Evo II	26	41’02.620	10 Laps	3 Laps
	dnf	94	Dennis Olsen		Porsche 911 GT3 R	25	39’28.807	11 Laps	1 Lap
	dnf	55	Mikael Grenier		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	25	39’34.793	11 Laps	5.986
	dnf	11	Marco Wittmann		BMW M4 GT3	25	40’36.275	11 Laps	1’01.482
	dnf	27	David Schumacher		Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo	23	36’32.002	13 Laps	2 Laps
	dnf	74	Felipe Fraga		Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020	22	35’56.730	14 Laps	1 Lap
	dnf	7	Ricardo Feller		Audi R8 LMS Evo II	15	24’16.910	21 Laps	7 Laps
	dnf	3	Kelvin van der Linde		Audi R8 LMS Evo II	14	22’28.245	22 Laps	1 Lap
	dnf	25	Philipp Eng		BMW M4 GT3	11	18’09.441	25 Laps	3 Laps