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Mattias Ekström wins, Timo Scheider looses |
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Mattias Ekström has taken his third win of the season at the Le Mans Bugatti circuit. The Swede finished a couple of seconds ahead of Paul di Resta, who has closed most of the gap to championship leader Timo Scheider. Audi driver Scheider finished the race in sixth, and now only has two points left in the lead of the championship. |
The DTM race in Le Mans this afternoon saw another blunder from Audi. Halfway through the race championship leader Timo Scheider was in second place and his main rival Paul di Resta was outside of the points. With that as a result, Scheider would have been champion.
Thanks to the rain, the DTM race was an exiting one. There were alot of incidents, but best of all, there were a lot of battles for position and overtaking. The battle between Scheider and Schneider for fifth in the latter stages of the race was almost like Villeneuve vs. Arnoux in the 1979 F1 Grand Prix at Dijon.
The first incident starts on the first lap, when Martin Tomczyk, Maro Engel and Mike Rockenfeller drive through the gravel. Ralf Schumacher ends up in the gravel as well, but is, unlike the other drivers, unable to continue. On lap three, Martin Tomczyk has to park his car in the pitbox as well.
On the third lap Alexandre Prémat and Paul di Resta fight over third, and the French driver gets the better of the two. In the mean time, Markus Winkelhock and Bruno Spengler colide. A lap later Paul di Resta loses another place to Bernd Schneider.
As the track is drying, Paul di Resta and Bruno Spengler change to slicks on lap five and six, when the pit window has not opened yet. Eventhough Di Resta sets the fastest lap right after his stop, it can't make up the time for this extra stop, as he still has to make the two mandatory pit stops.
But things were turned around when the drivers had to start making their second pit stop and the rain started falling again. On lap 26 Mattias Ekström, who was in the lead, and Tom Kristensen, fourth, came in the pits for their stop and stayed on slicks. The next lap Timo Scheider was called in for slicks, despite that the driver asked the team on the radio if they were sure about it, as he felt it might rain more.
And his fears became reality. On lap 29, two laps after Scheider had made his stop, Paul di Resta came into the pits and changed to wets. He instantly showed fast lap times and that wets were the way to go. Just two laps later Mattias Ekström and Timo Scheider have to return to the pits to get wet tires.
Ekström just manages to hold on to the lead, but Scheider drops back to fifth, well behind his rival Paul di Resta, who overtakes Alexandre Premat for second. To make matters worse for Scheider, Bernd Schneider puts him under a lot of pressure which results in the Mercedes driver to overtake Scheider on lap 40. Scheider now loses five points to Di Resta, instead of gaining eight. |
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| 01 |
Mattias Ekström |
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41 laps |
| 02 |
Paul di Resta |
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+ 0:04.250 |
| 03 |
Alexandre Prémat |
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+ 0:10.946 |
| 04 |
Gary Paffett |
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+ 0:11.393 |
| 05 |
Bernd Schneider |
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+ 0:17.200 |
| 06 |
Timo Scheider |
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+ 0:18.806 |
| 07 |
Bruno Spengler |
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+ 0:19.318 |
| 08 |
Tom Kristensen |
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+ 0:20.074 |
| 09 |
Mike Rockenfeller |
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+ 0:26.014 |
| 10 |
Jamie Green |
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+ 0:29.940 |
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| Full Results |
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Rob Veltman Sunday, 05 October 2008 at 15:42 CET |
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