DTM’s official esports series, the DTM Esports Championship powered by MediaMarkt, has got underway with its first qualifying race at the Nürburgring.
The series will run two qualifying shootouts – this week’s race and another later in January - with drivers selected from an online qualification hotlap in RaceRoom Racing Experience. Thirteen drivers will qualify through each shootout – five in each of two heats, and three in a repechage – for the main series itself, which runs from February through to April. There’s also three wild card spots for a competition run at MediaMarkt branches in Germany.
Defending champion Moritz Lohner qualified at the first time of asking, coming through his heat just behind countryman and last season’s fourth-place driver Florian Hasse in third, with Italy’s Gianmarco Fiduci taking the win. More familiar names qualified through the second heat, which saw 2021’s third-place driver Tim Jarschel win from Kevin Siggy, with Marc Gassner in fourth. However British driver Jack Keighley, runner-up in 2021, had to come through the repechage race, winning from countryman Isaac Price with Marko Pejic in third as all three booked their spots.
As with last season’s championship, the overall winner of the 2022 series will win a real-world race seat in the DTM Trophy. Moritz Lohner claimed that prize in 2021, and after impressing at the test day went on to race for the full season, scoring two podium finishes on his way to eighth overall.
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