DTM | Hockenheim Trial 2024

The first day of pre-season testing for the 2024 DTM at Hockenheim has been recorded. Let’s go see the results.

The 2024 DTM season has officially begun with pre-season testing at the Hockenheim track. On the first day all twenty drivers on the track and Marco Wittmann who missed the first half. This first day of testing saw the debut of the McLaren 720S GT3.

Overall results on the first day of DTM 2024 testing at Hockenheim, Credit: Elia Aliberti of PaddockNews24

The first session

The first session of the afternoon at Hockenheim saw the best performance from the BMW of Renè Rast with a two-tenths advantage over reigning champion Thomas Preining and Lucas Auer. Fourth place for Mirko Bortolotti ahead of his colleague Nicki Thiim.

All drivers’ lap times were slower in the first session than in the second. This is because the track was previously dirty and many teams were doing performance checks. “

“We took the car in and checked again if everything was OK.”Lucas Auer explained Motorsport-General.

Marco Wittmann’s first match with the Schubert team was postponed until the second afternoon session due to a technical problem.

Results of the first 2024 test session at Hockenheim, Credit: ADAC DTM

Read also: DTM | Big changes for BMW in 2024, Roos: “Now it’s a problem of the past”

The second session

In the second session the drivers did qualifying practice and the fastest was the new Manthey EMA driver Ayancan Guven ahead of Thomas Preining. The Turk ran almost a second faster than Rene Rast’s time in the afternoon. The new McLaren Dörr Motorsport team also did well in its DTM debut: Clemens Schmid took fifth place in the all-new McLaren 720S GT3 Evo, 0.719 seconds off the fastest time of the day.

“Today we drove for the first time on the railway”, Schmid told Motorsport-Jumla. “I am very surprised. There the car performed very well with the basic setup provided by McLaren. Of course there are still small things that we need to improve, but I am satisfied.”