Sheldon van der Linde went into Saturday’s race with an extra 25 kilograms of success ballast following his two victories at the Lausitzring, however, he did a good job of damage limitation in eighth place. Starting Sunday’s race from eleventh on the grid, he drove a strong race and fought his way into fifth place. His haul of 14 points this weekend was sufficient to maintain his lead in the Drivers’ Championship. Now with 80 points to his name, he leads the second-placed driver by 12 points. In the Team competition, Schubert Motorsport leads with 101 points. Philipp Eng had a very strong drive on Sunday to finish sixth and add eight points to the cause at Imola. The Austrian impressed with multiple overtaking manoeuvres. Eng had narrowly missed out on the points in twelfth place on Saturday. Esteban Muth finished 14^th on Sunday in the second Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M4 GT3, having failed to finish on Saturday.

BMW M works driver Timo Glock was the centre of much attention in Italy and, after an impressive race on Sunday, enjoyed a successful guest appearance with the Ceccato Racing team, for whom he competes in the 2022 Italian GT Championship. Glock started race two from 18^th on the grid, but battled his way into eleventh. Despite narrowly missing out on a top-ten result, that was still a great success given the very short amount of preparation time and the high-class opposition. On Saturday, he was forced out of the race following a collision on the opening lap. 

“I had an awful lot of fun this weekend and really enjoyed my mini comeback in the DTM. Our lack of experience was particularly apparent in the qualifying sessions in which we simply could not get the best out of the tyres, which were new to us. We would need more test time for that. My race was over quickly on Saturday. On Sunday, I had impressive pace and a good start. Unfortunately, it went a bit wrong during the pit stop, which cost me a lot of positions and ultimately a top-ten finish. That is a bit frustrating. However, for Ceccato Racing it was important to experience the standard in the DTM. A big thank you goes to the team, BMW M Motorsport, and the ITR and its boss Gerhard Berger for the fantastic support with this guest start. I would love to do it again.”