Manthey leads the way in opening DTM practice at the Nurburgring

The Manthey team enjoyed a perfect start to its home event at the Nürburgring on Friday when Thomas Preining (A) set the fastest lap time of 1m25.517s in practice. His team-mate Ricardo Feller was second, 0.249s slower than the Austrian.

"The home event at the Nürburgring is very special for us," said Preining. "We have had a few podiums here, but have not quite managed to get a win yet. We are now hungry to finally pick up that first home victory for the Grello."

Behind the two 911s were the BMW duo from Schubert Motorsport. Kelvin van der Linde was third fastest ahead of his teammate Marco Wittmann in fourth. Fifth place went to Nicki Thiim in an Aston Martin Vantage GT3. Championship leader Maro Engel (Monaco) was 14th in his Mercedes-AMG GT3.

Faced with temperatures around 93 degrees Fahrenheit, the teams used Free Practice 1 on Friday morning to configure their cars for the sprint variant of the Eifel circuit, as well practicing their pit stops. The morning's best time came courtesy of Matteo Cairoli, who stopped the clock at 1m26.144s.

"That was a good start to the weekend, particularly after the difficult race weekends we have had recently in Oschersleben and at the Norisring," he said. "I hope we can challenge at the very front here".

Looking ahead to the weekend, Cairoli added: "You can hardly afford to make any mistakes at the Nürburgring. There is quite a lot of rubber from tire wear if you stray from the racing line. If you pick that up, it can cost you quite a bit of time, particularly in qualifying. The high temperatures obviously don't help. However, as an Italian, I am used to it."

For much of the afternoon session, which proved to be the faster of the two, van der Linde topped the standings with a time of 1m25.834s. Shortly before the end of the session, the Manthey Porsche duo turned up the heat and produced an exciting battle for top spot. Preining was first to take the lead, before being trumped by Feller just a few seconds later. The 28-year-old Austrian eventually clocked the fastest time of the day on his final lap.

Catch every lap of this weekend's DTM round live on RACER+. Click here for tune-in information.