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Title hopes gone for Ekström?

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Mattias Ekström and Audi entered the DTM 2006 season with a firm target. They were going to turn around the negative trend from last season, where they at the end couldn’t match the Mercedes pace and made many mistakes. But as the 2006 season is two races old Ekström stands with zero points and in pretty much same situation as last season end.

The first race at Hockenheim looked promising for the Swede. He was in a position to score a podium finish when something broke in the front suspension. Ekström was forced to retire. Last weekend the second race was held at Eurospeedway, and once again Ekström was in for a podium finish.

– The race went rather well. I wasn’t able to fully match the pace of Mika Häkkinen and Bernd Schneider, but we had opted for another strategy, Ekström said.

Two laps from finish he was forced to retire from second place. Something went wrong during the pitstop and the team didn’t get enough fuel in to Ekström’s Audi. A clumsy error which does not suit a top team in DTM.

– I could have finished runner-up but then I had to retire due to an empty tank, a dejected Ekström said after the race.

The DTM series is an incredibly competitive touring car championship. Last season neither Ekström nor championship winning Gary Paffett retired a single race.

As a comparison – Tom Kristensen finished third in the championship last season. He retired only one race during the entire 2005 season and finished 28 points behind Paffett.

Ekström’s chances to repeat his 2004 championship win are indeed looking grim after only two races. Ekström need to finish on the podium through out the entire remaining season in order to have a shot. Eight races are still left, many things can happen. But Audi need to gain the performance advantage that Mercedes currently have on them.

Schneider, Häkkinen and Kristensen are scoring consistently and are for sure not waiting on Ekström.

– To have scored no points twice means that my position in the fight for the title is extremely difficult, Ekström said.

One can read “Go hard or go home” on the back side of Ekström’s helmet. Never before has that line been this pressing for Ekström.