A Porsche contract offered Preining stability when he was rising up the ladder, but the lure of the DTM almost forced him elsewhere
Porsche factory driver Thomas Preining has revealed he thought twice about leaving his employer because of the DTM and almost cried when signing his first Porsche contract.
Preining is now an established figure in the DTM; the Austrian driver won the 2023 title in the ‘Grello’ Porsche and has impressed since his series debut in 2022 with aggressive, bold driving.
But few people know that the 27-year-old seriously considered walking away from his Porsche contract in the late 2010s to race in the Class 1 era of the DTM.
Speaking on the Over the Limit podcast with Laurens and Dries Vanthoor, Preining recalled how difficult it was to commit to Porsche back in 2017. At that time, Porsche was not participating in the DTM, and he feared he was giving up his shot at Germany’s premier touring car series.
“I always watched [the DTM]. And for me, I was really struggling to sign my Porsche Junior contract, even though I knew the chance to even continue racing on any level is probably 1% if I don't sign it,” he said.
“I knew this is me giving up the DTM for the future because back then Porsche was not in DTM. So I was almost crying in Dr. Walliser's office when I signed. It all turned out well.”
Preining said that was not the only time he questioned his future with Porsche.
“After I finished the junior programme and had the chance to become a factory driver, I almost left Porsche again because of the DTM,” he explained. “I had a chance to switch to the DTM during the Class 1 era. But that project didn’t look like a decent medium- or long-term solution.”
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Preining didn’t name the team involved, but the context strongly suggests he was referring to the Aston Martin Class 1 project run by R-Motorsport, which briefly filled the gap in 2019 after Mercedes-AMG’s exit from the DTM.
Preining tested a Mercedes C63 DTM at the series’ young-driver test at Jerez in December 2018, driving for HWA alongside Ferdinand Habsburg, Jake Dennis and Jake Hughes. Daniel Juncadella served as the reference driver at that time.
Juncadella, Habsburg and Dennis, along with Paul di Resta, formed the driver line-up for the Aston Martin project in 2019, with HWA responsible for its DTM operations.
Preining, then 20 years old and whose junior contract ran until the end of 2018, instead competed as a "Young Professional" for Porsche team Herberth Motorsport in the ADAC GT Masters in 2019, where he won on his maiden weekend.
In hindsight, staying with Porsche worked out well for Preining. R-Motorsport withdrew from DTM after one difficult season, as it struggled to battle Audi and BMW due to financial reasons.
The manufacturer-heavy days of the DTM also ended just a year later, with the series adopting the customer-focused GT3 formula in 2021.
This opened the door for Porsche to join the DTM, coinciding with Preining’s promotion to factory status.
“As things turned out a couple of years later, they changed the regulations for DTM,” he said. “You can use GT cars. And in the first season, Porsche was not there. But I was calling them every week if there is any way something could happen. And it did. So I was really happy about that."
Porsche finally entered the DTM in 2022 with the Bernhard team and SSR Performance – and after a difficult start to the season at the Norisring, Preining secured the German brand's first race victory that year.
His maiden drivers’ title followed in 2023, with Manthey EMA, and he has remained a consistent frontrunner in the series since then.
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Category: General Sports
