The DTM heads to Zandvoort this weekend with a championship table already split between two home heroes after a Red Bull Ring opener that delivered exactly what the German GT series had promised — a 51,000-strong crowd, factory metal at the front, and a two-way fight for the title that left the field on points after one round.
Manthey Junior Team's Thomas Preining took Race 1 in front of an Austrian home crowd on his Porsche 911 GT3 R, a result the 27-year-old immediately filed alongside the most important days of his life. "Thank you so much, Thomas, this is one of the top three best days of my life," Preining said as he was handed the winner's trophy at Spielberg. Race 2 went to Mercedes-AMG ace Maro Engel, who used a clean restart and a perfectly timed pit-stop window to overhaul the early leaders and put himself on top of the standings. "Maro Engel wins here at the Red Bull Ring. Fantastic," Engel told the team radio after the chequered flag. "That's it. What a start. Let's keep it up."
The headline at the front concealed a deeper story behind it. Reigning champion Ayhancan Güven, the Turkish driver who lifted Manthey's title last year, watched team-mate Ricardo Feller climb into his old No.91 car and trade results across the weekend. "It feels very special because it's the championship-winning car of last year," Feller said before the round. "It puts a little bit of extra pressure on my shoulders for sure — because if you don't win the championship, you just make it worse than what the car did last year. But I'm really looking forward to the challenge."
Abt Sportsline, the four-time champion squad whose Audi R8 line-up had a quiet 2025, used the winter to rebuild its driver roster. Two new names join the team for 2026, both arriving with what the squad's principal Thomas Biermaier described as "a breath of fresh air." One of the new arrivals, asked about expectations, said: "Of course it's a pressure, but most of all it's an honour that the team chose me. Driving for Abt is for sure a big honour in one of the most successful teams in DTM."
The full field totalled 21 cars — described by series spokesmen as the "Champions League of GT racing" — across BMW M4, Porsche 911 GT3 R, Audi R8, Mercedes-AMG GT3 and Lamborghini Huracán metal. Tyre supplier Pirelli has flagged compound changes for Zandvoort to cope with the abrasive Dutch surface, and a small bump in maximum boost pressure for the Manthey Porsches has been ironed in following Pirelli and BoP discussions at Spielberg.
Zandvoort hosts rounds three and four of the 2026 season on May 22-24, with the seaside circuit's banked Tarzan corner and elevation-led Hugenholtz hairpin historically rewarding cars that can be rotated on the throttle. Preining has finished on the Zandvoort podium twice in three previous DTM visits; Engel won there in 2022 in the Mercedes-AMG and arrives as championship leader after Red Bull Ring.
For Australian skiing royalty Marcel Hirscher, the Red Bull Ring weekend doubled as a chance to plug Wings for Life World Run, the spinal-injury charity event held on May 10. "All of the round entry fees go directly to the benefits for spinal cord injuries and we are all running for those who can't," Hirscher said on the DTM grid before Sunday's race. "It doesn't matter how far you reach your personal goals — we are all running for the same issue, to help people, and that's amazing."
Beyond Zandvoort, the DTM calendar threads through Norisring (early July), the Nürburgring, Hockenheim and a finale at the Saudi-funded Lausitzring date toward the end of the season. The series' new commercial arrangement with ADAC has stabilised the calendar at eight rounds, sixteen races — fewer than in the 2024 transitional season but better protected against the clashes with WEC and IMSA that hurt entries last year.
For Preining, the Zandvoost task is straightforward. "I think we improved ourselves a lot over the winter," he said at Red Bull Ring. "We did our homework. Last year was just a year to learn, and now it's time to make my marks in the championship."
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/dtm-zandvoort-2026-preview-preining-engel-red-bull-ring-feller). Visit for full coverage.*
