Tyrolean Clemens Schmid with the Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini and South African Sheldon van der Linde with the Schubert Motorsport BMW set the pace in the two free practice sessions on Friday, the opening day of DTM Red Bull Ring powered by REMUS. The lap time of 1m 28.565s set by local hero Schmid in the first session was the fastest time of the day at the 4.318 kilometres long track in Styria. Behind Schmid and DTM points’ leader Sheldon van der Linde (1m 28.574s), another Austrian, Thomas Preining (1m 28.594s) ended up in the top three of the day with the KÜS Team Bernhard Porsche. In bright sunshine, the 27 drivers from DTM participated in the practice day in preparation for the 13th and 14th race of the season. In the process, margins were small: in the morning, the times of the first 21 drivers were within one second, in the afternoon, it was even the first 25.