Sachsenring: Friday practices report

Opel and Audi convince during test day

Mattias Ekström was the fastest man of the day after the two test sessions in preparation for the fourth round of the DTM at the Sachsenring. With his Abt-Audi TT-R, the Swedish driver lapped the 3.645 km long track near Hohenstein-Ernstthal in 1.20.637 minutes, which made him 0.053 seconds faster than his French team-mate Laurent Aiello. Swiss Alain Menu (Opel Astra V8 Coupé), who had topped the time sheets in the morning test session from three further Opel-drivers, set third fastest time in the afternoon. In the second session of the day, four Audi- and five Opel-drivers were among the first ten, fastest driver of a Mercedes-Benz CLK-DTM was reigning champion Bernd Schneider in ninth place.

"The Sachsenring is a real speed track, comparable with Thruxton in England," said two times British touring car champion Alain Menu. "The speed is a little critical for the tyres, there is a lot of pressure on the right front wheel especially. You have to save your tyres as well as you can." Menu was quite satisfied with his performance on the test day: "The track seems to suit our Astra Coupé very well, at least I like it very much." Mattias Ekström also feels well at the Sachsenring: "As a racing driver, you have to do well everywhere, but I do like this track in particular. There are fast, fluent parts, you quickly find a good rhythm. That let us hope for a good result, I am quite confident."

In the second test session, Laurent Aiello could only go out on the track towards the end. A defective power steering pump on his Abt-Audi TT-R forced him to sit out the better part of the session on the pit wall. There, the football fan had to watch how the French national team lost the opening match of the world cup against Senegal 0-1. Aiello, however, remains optimistic: I keep my fingers crossed for our team."

-dtm-