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Bernd Schneider takes pole

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Once again, Bernd Schneider proved that he has still got what it needs to outclass DTM’s young guns. Thanks to a great lap in the single lap shoot-out of the ten fastest drivers of the qualifying session, the 41-year old gained the 24th pole in his DTM career.

“I’m experiencing a rather difficult year,” said the four-time DTM Champion, “Therefore, I’m particularly delighted with having made it back to the top.” Behind the wheel of his AMG-Mercedes C-Class, Schneider lapped Zandvoort’s dune circuit in 1:32.730 minutes.

At the same time, Swiss Marcel Fässler and former Formula One ace Heinz-Harald Frentzen caused a stir and made the crowds cheer by taking their Opel Vectras GTS V8 to second and third grid positions, with Fässler’s lap being just 0.224 seconds slower than Schneider’s.

Two minutes prior to the end of the qualifying session, Schneider held only 18th place, but then, the DTM Record Champion proved his skills by qualifying for the Super Pole and setting the fastest lap time, there. While Opel drivers Fässler and Frentzen confirmed their good times set in Friday’s test sessions by qualifying second and third respectively.

Yet, it has to be admitted that they benefited from a mistake of Denmark’s Audi driver Tom Kristensen who seemed to be on the way to clearly secure pole position when he slightly went off the track, thus losing valuable time. Therefore, his Audi A4 will be only tenth on the grid for tomorrow’s race that will start at 14:00hrs (ARD live coverage from 13:45hrs).

The battle of the top title favourites turned out to also be extremely thrilling. Gary Paffett (DaimlerChrysler Bank AMG-Mercedes) and Mattias Ekström (Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline) will be fourth and fifth respectively on the grid for the eighth round of the 2005 DTM season. Currently, Sweden’s Ekström (51 points), the winner of the 2004 Zandvoort round, holds a one-point lead over Britain’s Gary Paffett (50).

The following grid positions for the 2005 DTM season’s third abroad race were secured by Mercedes driver Jamie Green and the Audi trio Allan McNish, Christian Abt and Frank Stippler.