Eventful opening round of DTM Trophy for PROsport Racing AMR

Sunday fortunately appeared to be another day for the team, as Heinemann Qualified his car P2 for the days shorter 30-minute race whilst Matthiessen struggled with his car to set a time over four seconds slower than his teammate in P20.

A simple sprint race around the historic circuit of Monza sounded simple but as usual, the concertina effect of the first chicane was there to trip people up. Thankfully, all round safely for the first time but a stuck BMW in the gravel on the opening lap called for a brief Safety Car whilst it was removed.

A side-by-side restart from behind the Safety Car saw Heinemann look for a way back past into P2 having dropped a place in the opening corners and by the fourth lap he was back to where he had started but for the next fifteen minutes it would be all about getting past the then leading #2 BMW.

Having struggled all race so far, the #19 car of Matthiessen would come to a grinding halt with still eight minutes remaining - not clear as to why but certainly technical over accident induced problems.

Having already cut turn 1 and given the place back, Heinemann’s only way past the BMW was by doing the same again but this time the gesture wasn’t repeated for the #1 to go on and take the chequered flag. The trouble was that even before the podium celebrations had started, a two second penalty had been applied to the #1 car’s race time – putting them back to P3 overall.

Either way, the #1 car showed good pace for the reigning DTM Trophy Champion – Matthiessen will need to look back at what went wrong for them before they move onto the Lausitzring at the end of July.

Photo credits – DTM Trophy / Team