Ayhancan Güven Made Asphalt Cry

Sport Time
May 1
3 min read

The first race of the DTM 2025 season was held on Sunday, April 27.

As always, it was a very exciting race and ended with Ayhancan Güven's victory.

Starting in 4th place, Turkish driver Ayhancan Guven entered the first corner in 3rd place.

In first place was Mercedes-AMG Team Jules Gounon with TGI Team Lamborghini by GRT Jordan Pepper in second.

It's a terrific chase. Gounon is trying to hold on to first place, Pepper is hot on his heels, and Trust is planning to overtake them both. The runner, the chaser.

The first accident of the race happened after 12 minutes. Nicolas Baert in the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 from the Comtoyou Racing Team drove off the track, hit the protective tires hard and the Safety Car entered the track.

The race restarted after the car was towed off the track.

In the 20th minute some cars pitted.

There were some dangerous moments in the pits, the cars that came out came side by side and had the danger of rubbing, it was really exciting.

But the top three still hadn't pitted, so were they using tactics?

Pepper pitted with about 6 minutes to go before the end of the pit session, and Trust moved up to 2nd place, by the time Pepper came out of the pits and returned to the race, he had fallen back to 6th place.

With 4 minutes to go, Gounon pitted in 1st place and Güven moved up to 1st place.

I think this was a tactic.

With 30 minutes to go Ayhancan Güven was still on the track, he hadn't pitted yet and now he was in 1st place.

When Gounon came out of the pits he had dropped to 4th place.

Ayhancan Güven pitted in the last 3 minutes and was still in 1st place.

Behind Güven in 2nd place was Rene Rast from Schubert Motorsport Team, in 3rd place was Timo Glock from Dörr Motorsport Team and they also pitted and whoever pitted first would be in 1st place. There was no time to breathe in the pits in a terrific battle.

In the end, Güven was the first out of the pits, with Rast right behind him, but Glock still hadn't come out and was far behind.

With 28 minutes to go, the top three places were Güven in 1st place, Rast in 2nd, Gounon in 3rd and Pepper in 4th.

Trust was not going to give up first place now.

In a right-hander, Team ABT Sportsline's Nicki Thim had a minor collision with Team Dörr Motorsport's Ben Dörr and Nicki's car was badly damaged and had to retire from the race, while Dörr continued.

Ayhancan Guven was widening the gap to the one behind him.

It was no longer possible to reach him, he was flying.

15 minutes into the race, preparations for Pit 2 are underway. The battle of tactics.

Güven and the lineup behind him pitted in the last seconds.

Güven was the first out of the pits, followed by Rast, who left the pits 2 seconds late, leaving him behind Gounon and Pepper.

Eight minutes and 50 seconds.

It was a great battle behind Trust.

Thomas Preining of Team Manthey EMA, number 91, was coming very fast and suddenly he was in 3rd place.

Preining was chasing Gounon on his bumper. Gounon in 2nd, Preining in 3rd. Trust in 1st place was far ahead.

Although Preining made some spectacular passes and moved up to 3rd place, he managed to finish the race in 3rd place with no time left to pass Gounon.

And the race ended in this order.

1. Manthey EMA (90) - Ayhancan Güven

2. Mercedes-AMG Team MANN-FILTER - Jules Gounon

3. Manthey EMA (91) - Thomas Preining