Monday briefing 001: Preining crowned, Porsche wins Indy
Listen to RSR’s first Monday briefing: Preining’s DTM title, Porsche’s Indianapolis win, championship success for BMW and Mercedes-AMG, and the ELMS finale at Portimão.
Podcast: Weekend GT3 briefing, 12 October 2026
Our first Monday briefing follows Thomas Preining’s second DTM title at Hockenheim, then crosses the Atlantic for the Indianapolis Eight Hour.
GMG Racing delivered the overall victory for Porsche. Turner Motorsport won the Pro class and its domestic championship for BMW, while Maxime Martin secured the Intercontinental GT Challenge drivers’ title for Mercedes-AMG.
At Portimão, Proton Competition won the final European Le Mans Series race in the LMGT3 class, but TF Sport’s Corvette took the championship. The briefing separates the weekend’s race victories from the season-long titles they helped decide.
Listen to episode one
Running time: 4 minutes 21 seconds.
Editorial responsibility: JP Hackett, The Rennsport Report. Narration generated using AI.
Listen to episode one on Spotify.
Intro music: ‘Logo Intro’ by asproductionmusic, sourced from Pixabay.
Indianapolis results were provisional when this episode was prepared on 11 October 2026.
Transcript
Good morning. This is The Rennsport Report, with your Monday briefing for the twelfth of October.
Thomas Preining is the DTM champion. Porsche has won the Indianapolis Eight Hour and the Intercontinental GT Challenge manufacturers’ title. And in Portugal, Proton won the final race, but TF Sport took the championship.
We begin at Hockenheim.
Preining secured his second DTM title, following his first in twenty twenty-three. Third place in Sunday’s finale was enough for the Manthey Porsche driver.
Maro Engel won the race for Winward, ahead of Ricardo Feller in the other Manthey Porsche. Marco Wittmann finished seventh for Schubert BMW.
Engel delivered the victory he needed. But Preining’s championship advantage meant a podium finish was enough.
Saturday had been costly for Engel. A sticking right-rear wheel delayed his mandatory stop while he was leading. He finished fourth, while Preining recovered to fifth.
Engel left with a Sunday victory, but Preining and Manthey took the championship.
And Engel’s weekend had consequences on the other side of the Atlantic.
His DTM commitments kept him out of Indianapolis, where he had led the Intercontinental GT Challenge drivers’ standings. Mercedes-AMG still took that title, through Maxime Martin.
Martin’s number thirty-four JMF Motorsports car finished fifth overall, and fourth among the entries eligible for Intercontinental points. He took the championship four points ahead of Engel.
The race classification available at recording remains provisional. The organiser has declared Martin champion.
Martin acknowledged that JMF did not have the pace to win. The team nevertheless secured the result it needed for his title. That is a successful championship finish, even though it was not an Indianapolis victory.
The overall win belonged to GMG Racing’s number thirty-two Porsche, shared by Kyle Washington, Riccardo Pera and Ayhancan Güven.
GMG won from the Pro-Am class, beating the professional entries as well as its own class rivals. An alternative pit strategy paid off during a long uninterrupted stretch of racing, and the Porsche finished fifty-six seconds clear.
That victory also secured Porsche’s Intercontinental manufacturers’ championship.
For BMW, Turner Motorsport finished third overall and won the Pro class with its number twenty-nine car. The result secured the GT World Challenge America Pro championship for Turner.
GMG won outright, Turner won Pro and its domestic title, and JMF delivered Martin’s international drivers’ crown.
Mercedes-AMG’s other title challenger, Luca Stolz, lost his opportunity when the Lone Star car retired after an early collision.
Mercedes-AMG retained the drivers’ title despite Engel’s absence. But the results alone cannot tell us whether shared staffing or competing programmes affected performance.
Finally, to Portimão, and the European Le Mans Series.
Proton’s number seventy-five Porsche won the LMGT3 class by just over twenty-one seconds. High Class Racing put another Porsche on the podium in third.
But second place was enough for TF Sport’s Corvette to secure the championship. The final table puts TF Sport on eighty-eight points, just two ahead of Proton’s winning car.
Proton’s two Porsches finished second and fourth in the championship. Team Qatar by Iron Lynx took third.
Team Qatar had arrived as championship leader and started from pole. A pit-lane speeding penalty damaged its challenge, and its Mercedes-AMG finished eighth.
So Porsche took the final race, while Corvette took the season. For Proton, victory brought it close, but could not quite overturn the points deficit.
For our next reporting, the question is how these teams carry their success forward. Who keeps the drivers, people and support that made the difference? And which of these results can they repeat?
That’s your Monday briefing from The Rennsport Report.
You can find our reporting at rennsportreport dot com.
Thanks for listening.
Reporting and context
RSR Intelligence 019: The customer-team picture before Indianapolis supplies the context carried into this weekend.
Results and title reporting: Speedweek’s DTM finale report; SRO’s Indianapolis race and championship report; Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s race and Turner title report.
Portimão: the ELMS organiser’s race report and the final LMGT3 teams’ standings.
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