Rush hour in free practice of the DTM at Hockenheim: only on his final lap in the final test session before the the first qualifying session of the 2007 season, Martin Tomczyk secured himself fastest time with his Audi A4 DTM. With his lap time of 1:34.124 minutes, the driver from Rosenheim outpaced Mika Häkkinen, who was second. Driving his AMG Mercedes C-Class, the two times’ Formula 1 world champion was 0.172 seconds down on Tomczyk. In the closing stages, Timo Scheider beat Alexandre Prémat, who had been on top of the time sheets for quite a while in his year-old Audi in the battle for third place.
Bruno Spengler was fifth after the session, ahead of the two Audi-drivers, Mattias Ekström and Tom Kristensen. DTM record champion, Bernd Schneider, was eighth, Christian Abt was ninth with his year-old car. DTM rookie, Paul di Resta, who surprised with his fastest time in Friday, was an excellent third after the 60 minutes’ practice session.
The two Mücke drivers, Susie Stoddart and Daniel la Rosa, were slowed down by technical problems. After only four laps, practice was over for the Scottish lady racer. “We were having trouble with power steering and unfortunately, I couldn’t drive any longer”, a disappointed Stoddart reported. “Nevertheless, my car was good. I have to work hard in qualifying.” Her team-mate from Hanau was not happy with the set-up of his AMG Mercedes C-Class. “We tried several things, but we didn’t find a really good ser-up”, said La Rosa, who ended up 17th.
After 60 minutes in bright sunshine on Saturday morning, the field was again very close, like it had been on the day before. The result sheet shows 18 drivers within one second. Free practice was the final possibility to work on the set-up for qualifying. From 13.28 h onwards, the line-up on the grid for the race on Sunday will be decided.
Technorati Tags: Audi, Audi A4, Audi DTM, DTM, Deutsche Tourenwagen-Meisterschaft, German Touring Car Championship
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