Photo: DTM.de

Tom Kristensen wins for Audi

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Tom Kristensen won the DTM race today at Zandvoort. Kristensen held the lead from lights to flag. Bernd Schneider made a fine drive through the field and caught up on Kristensen on the very last lap. Martin Tomczyk took third after a long battle with Schneider.

As the race started, pole man Jamie Green made an aweful start letting four Audis by. Kristensen, Tomczyk, Ekström and Frentzen went past.

The race was mainly a battle between Kristensen and Schneider. Mercedes-driver Schneider started from seventh position but started to make ground early in the race. Kristensen had his life guards Tomczyk and Ekström behind him for almost the entire race.

But there was a scare for Kristensen after the first pitstop. Kristensen went away just a moment too soon from his pit making the man putting fuel in his car fall and the fueling equipment was left on his car as he exited the pits. Luckily the equipment fell off the car in the first corner without any damage to the car.

After the first pitstop Kristensen led the race ahead of Ekström and Tomczyk. But Tomczyk went past Ekström after a short while, leaving the Swede to fight off Green. The battle between Ekström and Green was very hard.

After many laps fighting Green got tired of staying behind and threw his car on the inside of Ekström with locked tyres. The manouvre was very over optimistic and he slammed in to the side of Ekström who spun with a puncture. Ekström pitted to fix his tyre while Green recieved a drive through-penalty.

The order in the front was Kristensen-Tomczyk-Schneider-Spengler. And the battle for second place grew big on the closing stages of the race. Schneider was much quicker than Tomczyk who on the other hand made life very hard for Schneider, driving defensively.

With only two laps left Schneider managed to squeeze past. The speed difference between the two then became very obvious. Schneider immideately pulled away from Tomczyk and actually came within striking distance to Kristensen. As the final flag fell Schneider was only 0.7 seconds behind Kristensen, making it only two points gained for the Dane.

Next race takes place in Spain at Barcelona on the 24:th of September.