Timo Scheider takes first DTM career win

Timo Scheider has taken his first win in his DTM career at the Oschersleben Motorsport Arena. The Audi driver started the race from pole position and led almost the entire race. Scheider finished the race 1.5 seconds ahead of his team mate Martin Tomczyk. Canadian driver Bruno Spengler took the last spot on the podium, and was consequently the fastest Mercedes driver off the day.

Thanks to a couple drive through penalties there were quite a lot of battles and incidents throughout the race, on a track that normally shows little overtaking. Tom Kristensen, starting from second on the grid, and Bernd Schneider, starting from tenth, jumped the start and both received a drive through penalty. Both drivers dropped to the back of the field and had to start working their way through the field.

After the start the field headed for the first corner, where Oliver Jarvis was the first casualty of his own exuberance. The newcomer turned into the corner where Jamie Green was already beside him. Jarvis spun round and dropped to the back of the field. Greens part in the incident was investigated by the race control, but no penalty was given as it was a racing accident.

Winner of the last race at Hockenheim, Mattias Ekström showed throughout the race what one of the biggest problems of the modern DTM cars is. The Swede was tapped on the back in the first lap and destroyed the aerodynamics on the back of his car. Ekström was unable to keep up with the race pace of the front runners and had to defend during the entire rest of the race to prefent the cars behind him from passing. After the first set of pitstops Jamie Green and Mike Rockenfeller managed to get passed the Swede, and after the second pitstop Markus Winkelhock had overtaken him as well. Ekström finished the race in eighth place, taking the last championship point.

Towards the end of the race Tom Kristensen had worked his way up to eleventh, with a beautiful overtaking manouvre over Ralf Schumacher round the outside. After overtaking Maro Engel for tenth, the Dane however lost control over his car in the dubble lefthander of Triple, went wide and spun back onto the track, coliding with Maro Engel. Both drivers ended in the gravel trap, and the safety car came out to allow the marshalls to clean the debry on the track.

After the safety car had gone back into the pits, there were still five laps to go, in which Timo Scheiders lead was not threatened anymore. It had taken the German driver 77 races to take his first win, and he was seemingly happy with it.

Stay tuned for the reactions of the drivers after the race!