Van der Linde 1-2 in DTM as Sheldon beats Kelvin at the Nurburgring

Sheldon van der Linde beat his brother Kelvin to the win in race 1 of the DTM round from the Nurburgring.

This marks not only the first South African 1-2 in DTM history, but the first 1-2 for a pair of brothers in the German championship.

Mirko Bortolotti started the race, delayed for over three hours because of heavy fog surrounding the circuit, but lost the lead to Felipe Fraga. The two battled for the lead for a while, before pitting and resuming the lead. However, their battle came to the end after Bortilotti sent it up the inside at the final corner, nudging Fraga’s Ferrari into a spin, ending up in the gravel on driver’s left.

This put both cars out and left the way open for S. van der Linde to take the win in front of his brother.

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Ricardo Feller’s and Maximillian Gotz’s battle didn’t end until the final lap, with the Audi driver winning out over Gotz in the Mercedes-AMG, taking the final podium place. In fifth was Lucas Auer, with Philipp Eng sixth and Nick Cassidy seventh.

Eng and Cassidy, along with Rene Rast, who finished ninth, had a contact-filled battle in the final few minutes of the race, with Eng managing to keep both Cassidy and Rast behind him despite huge pressure. Rast came off worst, with damage to his Audi meaning he slipped back to ninth, behind Marco Wittmann in eighth, in the closing laps.

Closing out the top 10 and taking the final championship point was Mikael Grenier, beating Maxi Buhk and Clemens Schmid.