Audi and Ekström fastest in first test

In the first DTM test in the Motorsport Arena Oschersleben, Audi ace Mattias Ekström continued where he stopped after the DTM season opener at Hockenheim: the 2004 DTM champion came out first in the first 90 minutes’ test on Friday morning. The Swede lapped the new redesigned track near Magdeburg, that now has a length of 3.696 kilometres, in 1:23,593 minutes.

Second place behind Ekström was occupied by fellow Audi-driver, Lucas Luhr. On his fastest lap, the Audi rookie was only 0.029 seconds down on the Swede. Fastest driver with an AMG Mercedes C-Class was Bruno Spengler in third place. The Canadian came 0.062 seconds short on Ekström’s fastest time.

Adam Carroll of the Futurecom TME team had a good start into his second DTM weekend. With the 2005-spec Audi A4 DTM, the rookie was fourth behind Ekström, Luhr and Spengler, almost one tenth of a second down. “That was a really good start and a good session, said Carroll. “We still have quite some work to do, but I am optimistic.” Mike Rockenfeller also has reason to be optimistic after finishing fifth behind Carroll with a lap time of 1:23.753 minutes. “We already tested at Oschersleben three weeks ago and still have to sort out a few minor things”, Rockenfeller said and explained: “We didn’t want to do too many laps in order to save our tyres. We will do a long run this afternoon.”

Paul di Resta started quite late. A throttle problem kept the Scot stuck in the pit box for quite a long time. He only managed seven laps to finish 15th. This made Di Resta quicker than the two Audi stand-ins Marco Werner and Frank Biela. Werner did 37 laps, the quickest one in 1:24.653 minutes. Biela came 1.455 seconds shot of the fastest time and was last.