Double lead for Mercedes in 1st test

Reigning DTM champion Bernd Schneider put things straight in the first test at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz on Friday morning: with the 2007-spec AMG Mercedes C-Class, the driver from the Saarland set the fastest lap time of 1:20.804 minutes. Second place in the 90 minutes’ test went to his team-mate Mika Häkkinen. Just before the end of the session, on the last one of the 30 laps he completed, the two times’ Formula 1 world champion outpaced Christian Abt in the Audi A4 DTM (2006) by three thousandths of a second, demoting the German to third.

Fourth place behind the driver from the Allgäu was occupied by points leader Mattias Ekström with the current Audi A4 DTM. Paul di Resta (Mercedes) and Martin Tomczyk, who are jointly leading the points’ standings with the Swede, took eleventh and 15th place respectively in the first test.

Audi works driver Alexandre Prémat was back behind the wheel for the first time after his accident in the season opener at Hockenheim. After 32 laps, the Frenchman was 14th. “I am happy to be back again, because at home, it is quite boring sometimes”, Prémat said. “When I am in the car, I have no pain.”

Standing in for Tom Kristensen, who just like at Oschersleben is not yet fit to race, Markus Winkelhock is making his comeback in the most popular international touring car series. One day earlier, the German still was testing for the Spyker Formula 1 team at Le Castellet in France. “Changing from the Formula 1 car into the Audi A4 DTM is a very big step”, Winkelhock said. After the first test, he was 19th, 1.354 seconds down. “But I am slowly getting used to it and I hope to improve further in the second test.”