Thomas Preining: How the first Porsche DTM champion saved his career

The manner in which Porsche's first-ever Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters title came to be was befitting of the circumstances. A qualifying duel in the last shootout of the year between the two standout drivers of the season going down to the wire, and wrapped up by a decisive last-minute lap clinching pole - and thus, the championship - by a scarcely-believable 0.006s. For the architect of that lap, Thomas Preining, it meant motorsport immortality then and there - as the driver to enter Porsche's halls of pioneers as its first DTM champion, but also as the first Austrian to win the series. But alongside the scope of that achievement there exists the context of that achievement - that, just under a decade earlier, Preining's burgeoning career looked down and out, until an alternate path to top-level motorsport success opened up to him.

'It was done'

The son of a veteran 250cc grand prix rider (the modern equivalent of that class is Moto2), Preining came to favour four wheels over two, and his capacity to make his way up the ranks was clear early on. But neither his talent, nor his one-of-a-kind motorsport background guaranteed anything like a smooth journey. As he left karting and joined Formula 4, a first season in formula cars started well, then ended almost immediately. "It was just a lack of funding, in the end," Preining recalls. "A sponsor I had back then, the company went bankrupt, unfortunately. So I had to stop racing. I was just at home, driving on the sim, staying sharp, trying to stay ready." A crucial formative season, for his development and for his reputation, had suddenly wrapped up in June. And there was no certainty he'd be back. "It was over, basically. It's not like 'maybe it's over'. It was done." Then, Lechner Racing - the team of the late Walter Lechner, a compatriot of Preining's who would become his good friend - offered him the chance to do a full F4 season this time. That went well enough for Preining to earn a spot in the Porsche Motorsport junior driver shootout. And that went very well, too - the Austrian was picked, alongside his now-fellow Porsche Motorsport factory driver Matt Campbell, from over 100 applicants to be a new Porsche Junior and to embark on a funded campaign in Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland.

It meant pivoting from his single-seater dreams. As he looks back at it, he sees the decision to do so as having "skipped three years of wasting my time and money". Preining accepts he may have made it slightly further up the open-wheel ladder, but certainly not much further. The funding to do it was not there. At the time, though, it wasn't easy to see it that way, and Preining deliberated over his path forward - even though he now feels the decision he took, to become a Porsche junior, was "the right decision and the only right decision". "Maybe it didn't feel like that then, but in the end, a 17-year-old kid knows not so much, you know? In the end I'm very glad I did it." And "thank God" he did, Preining says, because otherwise he suspects he would've been at university working towards an economics degree sooner or later. "In the end I knew... besides racing I don't know much else! That's what I did my whole life. That was plan A and B. "I got very, very lucky [with Porsche Motorsport] and I'm happy about it."

A Porsche product

Eight years later, he's "still there" - a major asset to Porsche Motorsport's efforts but also a better driver than he would've been had he remained on his own. "Joining Porsche was great, obviously, they have great coaches, and a really good structure in the junior programme, to kind of create a complete driver. "Which they obviously always improved over the years, because they had really good role models, like Timo [Berhnard], like Earl [Bamber] - who rose through the ranks. And you know, they are just the full-picture race drivers. "It's not only the on-track that you need to be good at. Yeah, they [Porsche Motorsport] have so many experts in all fields that kind of at least try to help you get more rounded as a driver." With the Lechner team, which is actually most renowned for its years and years of success on the sprawling ladder of Porsche 911 GT3 Cup competitions, Preining won himself a Carrera Cup Deutschland title - with a gaudy 10 wins in 14 starts that season.

He eventually graduated into full Porsche factory driver status and, when the DTM switched to GT3 regulations and a customer team structure and thus Porsche began to compete there, Preining was instantly keen. "For me, I always loved DTM, already as a kid - there was F1 and DTM, what I mainly followed, besides MotoGP. And I always wanted to drive here, and obviously... when I kind of graduated from the junior programme at Porsche, I knew this is not really an option because Porsche is not in DTM. "And that was also not so easy for me. "When the GT3 regulations were announced, I felt really pushy, I was really working on my bosses to race in DTM - but in the end it's also not up to them because it's customer racing." It was in the end, Preining says, another stroke of luck, in that he was already representing a Porsche customer team in ADAC GT Masters - Team 75 - that would decide to enter DTM and picked him. "If it would've been, I don't know, some other way around, that I was doing another championship before, I probably still, again, wouldn't be here. In the end it all came together quite nicely."

DTM glory

"I think at the moment he's complete," gushes Nicolas Raeder, the managing director of the Porsche customer Manthey EMA team that won the 2023 title with Preining and continues to field him in the DTM today. "It's very professional to work with him. He learned to motivate also the team. So if we have question marks as a team, he is self-confident to help us. And also in the other way. And he trusts us a lot, and us him also. And that's a big help. "We know what we can achieve, and that's a very important part of the game." Manthey EMA won the teams' title that year, too, while Porsche clinched the manufacturers' crown by 68 points. "We are very proud. And it was not luck," Raeder says, his team having been a new entry that year. "That's also important. Sometimes you can win with luck - that's also nice. But I am really proud of the whole team. "We made good steps, I think we started strong but not 100 percent, we made some mistakes, we learned from the mistakes and we improved the whole year. In the end if you work hard and you get the success in, it's much sweeter than to win with luck [for yourselves] or bad luck for another one."

What next?

This year, Manthey EMA is the only Porsche customer team on the DTM grid, which comes with its own challenges - but it has already stood on the top step with Preining again, who does not feel his DTM mission has been accomplished. "Luckily my [Porsche Motorsport] bosses gave me the freedom of choice, I have to say a big thank you to them," he says of returning to the DTM. "Obviously after the successes of last season I was in a luxury situation, that I had a very good standing. And I just decided on this." "The team, I really enjoy working here, I saw how much I improved as a driver last year. And also, I don't want to be that guy who, you know, enjoys having such a good team, brings one championship, and then 'thank you'," Preining pauses and does a 'see you later' gesture, before continuing: "I definitely wanted to stay and I also wanted to have the chance to try to defend the title, which we're working on." But Preining's ambitions are not just limited to the DTM. "I want to win more titles here, and I want to win Le Mans, I want to win WEC, obviously an FIA world championship is very intriguing. "Definitely looking in that direction also - which is why I've done multiple tests in the Porsche 963."

He's repeatedly tested in Formula E, too, for the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team. "It's the only manufacturer where you can basically at least try everything and see what works for you, what kind of different racing there even is. "There's everything. Porsche is everywhere, Porsche is successful everywhere, and the chance as a driver to work in such an ambitious and prestigious environment is very good - because everybody's motivated, everybody's winning at the end, maybe not every race but they're all doing well. "And everywhere you can pick something up and learn and improve, and this is also why it's great when you have the chance to do a Formula E rookie test, it's something so different to everything else I did and I do." Wherever it all takes him, Preining's Porsche Motorsport story feels like it's just only beginning - a stark contrast to his motorsport career feeling "over" not that long ago.