After eight rollercoaster rounds, the 2025 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season added a second drivers' title and teams' title to Porsche's illustrious motorsport history.
It all came down to one mind-boggling final lap, one incredible moment that was the difference between triumph and defeat - and a first-time champion who had to pull off the overtake of a lifetime to see a lifelong dream fulfilled.
"For this, with my family, we all together worked - we needed to do something different [to make it here], and we worked for this for a really long time," said Ayhancan Güven, the 2025 DTM drivers' champion driving for Teams' champion Manthey.
"I started racing at the age of five, and I'm now 27 - so after more than 20 years of racing, even some years not racing due to not having the possibility, but always dreaming it... it means everything for myself, for my family, for my country [Turkey], for my fans. I could not imagine something like this, what happened today."
Big changes
The 2025 DTM calendar was almost wholly unchanged from the previous year's - the exact same number of races and the exact same tracks, just with a couple of different dates.
But the schedule stability was offset by considerable changes to the rulebook, including a switch to synthetic fuel and some changes to race formats.
Manthey's underwent changes too, with Porsche Motorsport factory driver (and 2023 drivers' champion) Thomas Preining and Güven joined by a third car.
Morris Schuring was selected to race under the Manthey Junior Team umbrella, having been part of Manthey's 24 Hours of Le Mans class-winning Porsche 911 GT3 R crew the year before.
The title challenge takes shape
The new-look line-up had an immediate race-winning impact in the season-opening round at Oschersleben.
The first race's yield of points was solid, but the second race's was spectacular. Güven, whose previous best finish in the series had been third place, worked his way into third at the start, then cycled through the lead on strategy and simply drove away from the battles behind.
And Preining was a standout in those battles, working his way around the outside of BMW driver René Rast, then down the inside of Jordan Pepper and his Lamborghini to snatch the final spot on the podium.
That podium continued Preining's remarkable streak of DTM points-scoring, and it should have survived the next round, too - but Sunday contact in the twisty opening corners of the Lausitzring as Preining challenged for the lead and was nudged off the track broke a trackrod, so ended his run of consecutive races in the points at 35.
The second race was truly chaotic, but Güven thrived for his win number two, getting past Nicki Thiim for the lead and then controlling things after a late-race safety car restart.
Ups and downs
Over the four rounds after Zandvoort, Manthey soared, then came back down to earth, twice over - a consequence of track layouts, incidents, and the kind of rollercoaster you tend to get in championships that have Balance of Performance systems between different cars.
First came Norisring, though, where Preining thrived.
Having already shrugged off the end of his points streak with a return to the podium (third place) in the second Zandvoort race, Preining overcut his way into second place in the first Norisring contest.
The second Norisring race continued the arithmetic progression - third-second-first. A long, spectacular duel with Ferrari driver Jack Aitken, spanning across different stints, was ultimately resolved in Preining's favour for his third DTM win at the track in four years.
After a tough outing at the Nürburgring, August saw a major milestone. The DTM had not seen a back-to-back race winner since Preining swept the title-deciding Hockenheim weekend at the end of 2023. At the Sachsenring, Güven repeated the feat.
He was third entering the final lap of an exhilirating mixed-weather race, running behind Preining and Pepper, whose Turn 1 clash then opened the door for Güven to streak away to the win.
Preining, who ended up fourth in that race, fought for the win again on Sunday, but Turn 1 didn't work out again - Preining tapping race leader Aitken into a spin, so picking up a race-wrecking penalty as a result. Güven had also run third this time, so was again in prime position to capitalise, and did exactly that.
Another tough round followed at the Red Bull Ring. There was masterful damage limitation by Preining on Saturday in going from 16th on the grid to sixth at the finish, which was then countered on Sunday by another race-ruining puncture.
A double chance
Hockenheim, as it so often does, delivered a denouement befitting of the season.
While Manthey was in a strong position in the teams' title race, there was total chaos in the drivers' contest, with nine drivers in mathematical contention for the title at the start of the weekend.
Preining had gone from outside contender to one of the title favourites by driving a spectacular race on Saturday in very wet conditions, so wet the race had been delayed initially.
It was a vintage drive from the 2023 champion. Preining took the lead with 39 minutes to go, then turned that into a 17-second lead at the finish. It was the biggest winning margin not just of the season, but since 2020 - so the biggest of DTM's GT3 era, which had begun in 2021.
With Preining now second, three points behind leader Auer, and Güven fifth, eight points behind Auer, Manthey entered the final race as the only team with two drivers in title contention. It had also wrapped up the teams' crown earlier in the day in qualifying.
Both Preining and Güven came into the race as worthy potential champions. At the end of the season, Preining was, on average, the second-best qualifier in the series, a very close second-best on average lap-by-lap race position and spent the second-most laps in the top five.
Güven had a case for being the most effective racer. He gained a total of 38 places relative to starting positions during the season, an average of 2.5 per finish, second only to Mercedes driver Maro Engel among those final-race title contenders. And, even heading into the finale, he had already won more races in 2025 than anyone else.
But he had to win again.
A crazy finish
It looked like it was going to work out in fairly straightforward fashion. Second on the grid, Güven and Manthey executed the strategy well to cycle into the lead, and with the laps winding down he was bearing down on the win and the title.
Then, a sudden safety car meant that to get the title Güven had to overcome somebody already in that elite club, namely Marco Wittmann, BMW's two-time DTM champion.
Wittmann had frightening race pace, going from 17th on the grid, so hounded Güven at the late restart. There were seven tenths between them entering the final lap, but Wittmann made up the gap in no time, and by Turns 6 and 8 it was on a knife's edge, Güven hanging on desperately.
Just as Wittmann was finally making his way past on the run to the Mobil 1 corner, Güven heard from his race engineer that, with the results panning out as they are, he had to win the race to be champion.
The message was received. Güven feigned to the outside exiting the corner, then as Wittmann left a gap of "0.9 car lengths" on the inside Güven pounced, taking to the grass but making the move stick, with contact but with the overtake deemed legal.
It was one of the craziest finishes to any motorsport season ever.
"I will party forever," Güven joked in the post-race conference, choking up.
"I will celebrate for a really long time. Forever, I think I will celebrate this victory forever. A special, special moment."
Preining ended the season with a sixth-place finish, which meant fourth in the drivers' standings.
"We had three retirements, which were not really our fault, and we lost a lot of points in two races at the Sachsenring. Against this backdrop, it's actually a strong sign that we were in the title fight right up to the end. In the end, we really weren't far off," he said.
Accompanying the drivers' title and teams' title was a close second for Porsche in the manufacturers' championship, only just behind defending champion Mercedes and much improved on last year's finish of fifth.
That improvement owed a lot not to just Güven and Preining but also Schuring. The young Dutchman looked every bit a seasoned DTM driver in his first season - and was already sniffing a podium at the Sachsenring when he was denied by a pit exit infringement penalty.
But he got it done with a third place in the wet Hockenheim race, which also allowed him to prevail in a six-driver 'Rookie of the Year' contest - and to definitively count the season as a success.
"I'm incredibly proud of everyone, especially Ayhancan and Thommy for the season they've had," said a delighted Schuring.
"It's been a fantastic season, and I think we've really ended it on a high note."
