– The decision has been made: The Grasser team will once again start with two Lamborghini Temerario GT3 cars at the upcoming DTM weekend at the Nürburgring, after they were unable to get Maximilian Paul’s accident car ready in time for Oschersleben due to logistical problems.
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“We will be racing with two cars again at the Nürburgring,” confirms team boss Gottfried Grasser. “We have bought a new chassis – that is now the solution. The other car is not repairable according to Lamborghini.”
This increases the DTM field in the Eifel back to 21 vehicles. But who will sit in the Lamborghini Temerario GT3 with the starting number 19 and thus be teammate to Oschersleben winner Mirko Bortolotti? According to team boss Grasser, this has not yet been definitively decided.
Which Lamborghini factory driver will get the nod?
“It will definitely be a Lamborghini factory driver,” says the Austrian. “Nothing more has been decided yet.” According to information from Motorsport-Total.com, the decision is made by Lamborghini itself – and the number of candidates is limited anyway due to the manageable factory squad of the Italian Audi subsidiary (SPONSORED LINK: Secure tickets now for the 2026 DTM season!).
Who is it? The Frenchman Franck Perera is experienced in DTM – and he knows not only the Temerario GT3 but also the Grasser team very well, as he also races for the team in the GT World Challenge Europe (GTWCE) endurance series.
The 42-year-old was already a DTM driver for SSR Performance in 2023 and celebrated his only victory at that time in Oschersleben. In 2024, he returned as a substitute after Christian Engelhart’s withdrawal due to his knee injury during the season and celebrated another podium finish as second at the Norisring.
However, Perera is not exactly known as Mirko Bortolotti’s best friend, whose teammate he already was at SSR.
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Comeback chance for Engelhart or Niederhauser?
Engelhart is also allowed to hope for the cockpit – and thus a DTM comeback. The 39-year-old Bavarian celebrated a DTM victory in 2023 in the Toksport-WRT Porsche and was on the podium in the same season at the season finale in Hockenheim in the Grasser Lamborghini.
However, Engelhart injured his knee during the winter break and gave up his Grasser cockpit during the 2024 season because he had to undergo surgery.
A promising candidate is Patric Niederhauser: The Swiss competed in a DTM season in 2023 in an Audi, but his Attempto team was not competitive. Only last weekend, the 34-year-old showed his class in the Lamborghini Temerario GT3 fielded by the Rutronik team in the GTWC Sprint series in Magny-Cours and finished strong third together with teammate Luca Engstler.
And then there is the Brit Sandy Mitchell, who last weekend achieved the first victory of the Lamborghini Temerario GT3 in the USA in the American IMSA sports car series together with Andrea Caldarelli and the Pfaff team in Elkhart Lake. Apart from test drives at SSR, he does not know the DTM at all.
Besides the Nürburgring weekend, it currently looks like Grasser will definitely need a substitute for the Sachsenring in September as well. Whether Paul might be fit again and make a comeback at the season finale in Hockenheim in October is currently uncertain.
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