Three weeks out from the DTM season finale at the Hockenheimring (9–11 October), the championship's final official test day produced an unexpected headline: Ben Dörr in the Dörr-McLaren was quickest, clocking a 1:37.118 that none of the title contenders could match. The test at Hockenheim served as the last chance for all teams to fine-tune their cars before the two races that will decide the 2026 title.
Dörr Leads a Tight Top Five
Matteo Cairoli split the Emil Frey Ferrari entries in second place, just 0.127 seconds adrift. Marco Wittmann slotted the Schubert-BMW into third (+0.150 s), ahead of Ferrari team-mate Thierry Vermeulen (+0.161 s) and Arjun Maini's HRT-Ford (+0.202 s). The entire top five was covered by barely two tenths of a second — a margin that reflects a season in which the balance of power has shifted almost weekly.
The absence of a Porsche or Mercedes-AMG from the top five raised eyebrows, though reading too much into test-day pace is always risky. Teams at this stage of a championship rarely show their true hand in pre-event running, preferring to gather data without advertising their setups to rivals.
Preining in 12th: A Deliberate Choice
Championship leader Thomas Preining (Manthey Racing Porsche) ended the day 12th. He arrives at the finale holding a single-point advantage over Maro Engel — a margin so slim that every piece of information shared with a rival is a potential liability. Preining's low-key showing was almost certainly a strategic decision rather than a sign of mechanical trouble.
Engel's Winward-Mercedes also stayed out of the spotlight in the timing sheets. With two races still to run and the top seven classified drivers reportedly covered by just 13 points in the standings, the finale is wide open enough that showing pace now would serve nobody's interests.
Crawford: An F1 Reserve at a DTM Test
The talking point of the day had nothing to do with championship mathematics. Comtoyou Racing replaced their regular drivers Nicki Thiim and Nicolas Baert with Jak Crawford, a Formula 1 reserve driver being evaluated for a possible 2027 seat. Crawford put laps in without any official lap-time comparison being released, but the significance of his presence went beyond raw numbers.
DTM has positioned itself in recent seasons as a viable stepping stone and development platform for high-level single-seater talent, and the appearance of an active F1 reserve for a formal evaluation underlines that status. For Comtoyou, whose line-up has been in flux heading into the off-season, the test provides tangible data to support any prospective driver change.
The Stage Is Set for October
With Wednesday's test complete, attention now turns fully to the Hockenheimring finale. Race 1 is scheduled for Saturday 9 October at 13:30 local time; Race 2 follows on Sunday at 16:30. Preining needs to manage Engel across both encounters; Engel needs to find a gap. Dörr's test-day benchmark meanwhile offers no guarantee of race pace — but it serves notice that the battle for positions beyond the top two will be equally unresolved when the lights go out in October.