Photo: DTM media

Häkkinen takes Pole at Brands Hatch

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Things are going well for the Flying Finn: following pole position at Oschersleben and victory at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz, Mika Häkkinen also put his AMG Mercedes C-Class on pole at Brands Hatch. The Finn lapped the 1.929 kilometres short circuit, the shortest track on the DTM calendar, in 42.660 seconds.

“Qualifying was really difficult as all the drivers are so closely together here. Pole is pole and tomorrow, the others have the pressure, because they are behind me”, the 38-year old showed himself delighted with the third DTM pole of his career. Häkkinen’s team-mate Bruno Spengler secured himself second place. The Canadian was only 32 hundredths of a second down on the fastest time. Third fastest at the legendary circuit in the south-east of England was French Audi driver, Alexandre Prémat.

Mattias Ekström (Audi) also secured himself a good position for the battle for the DTM championship title by qualifying fourth. Last year’s Brands Hatch winner is second in the points’ standings, four points down on Scot, Paul di Resta. On Saturday, di Resta failed to make it into the second session of the shoot-out qualifying and will be starting 15th for the race on Sunday at 14.00 h (ARD live from 13.45 h).

Ekström is being followed by the best-placed German, Christian Abt with the Audi A4 DTM. DTM record champion Bernd Schneider (Mercedes-Benz) and his team-mate Jamie Green followed suit. Martin Tomczyk caused a brief interruption of the qualifying session. After locking up under braking in the third and final session, the Audi driver landed in the gravel trap, causing a five minutes’ interruption. The third-placed in the points’ standings will be starting from eighth place.

Other than Jamie Green, none of the five British drivers was able to use the home advantage in Kent county. The 2005 DTM champion, Gary Paffett, will be starting 13th, his fellow-countrymen di Resta and Adam Carroll from 15th and 16th place respectively. Susie Stoddart was 18th.

Mika Häkkinen (1st grid position, AMG Mercedes):
“Qualifying was really difficult as all the drivers are so closely together here. In the first qualifying heat, I was taking it a little bit too easy. That was a mistake, my times weren’t excellent. From the second heat onwards, I was totally focussed and my times improved. Eventually, I was on pole. Pole is pole and tomorrow, the others have the pressure, because they are behind me.”

Bruno Spengler (2nd grid position, DaimlerChrysler Bank AMG Mercedes):
“Qualifying was very hard because it was all very close. I am really happy with the result, because I struggled here last year and things weren’t perfect yesterday either. We have been working very hard overnight and second place on the grid is the result. Tomorrow’s race will be very long and very hard, it will be important not to make any mistakes.”

Alexandre Prémat (3rd grid position, Audi Sport Team Phoenix):
“I am very happy with my qualifying as I managed to improve in every session. My fastest lap was good, but not good enough. A faster lap time would have been possible. Like at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz, I am the best-placed Audi driver and I am very happy with that.”

Mercedes-Benz motorsport director Norbert Haug:
“I am very happy with the qualifying result. Congratulations to Mika Häkkinen for his second pole of the season and the fourth for the new C-Class. We have four cars in the top seven and everything is possible in the race on Sunday. Surely, it will be one of the toughest and most exciting races of the season. Being on pole doesn’t mean that one wins the race as well.”

Audi motorsport director Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich:
“First of all, I would like to than all those who have made it possible for us to be racing here at Brands Hatch again this year. The track is something special. We have seen an exciting qualifyin session. The lap times show that it can hardly be any closer. I want to congratulate Mercedes-Benz for pole position. We have two cars on the second row and we have shown already this year that these cars still can bring a good performance, even with handicap weight on board.”