Scheider takes first 2010 win in eventful Adria race

Timo Scheider claimed his first victory of the season as DTM clashed at Adria in Italy. The two Mercedes title rivals Gary Paffett and Bruno Spengler finished second and third.

Scheider started 15th and managed thanks to a spectacular strategy climb all the way to first. The German climbed many positions in the start of the race and made his first pit stop with just seven laps left of the race.

The race had been shortened considerably after a huge crash by Alexandre Prémat. The Frenchman clashed with Maro Engel on the very first lap, sending Prémat spinning hard in to the wall and rolling several times.

Fortunately Prémat was uninjured and was able to walk away from his wrecked Audi A4.

Previous race winner Paul Di Resta was also in trouble on the first couple of laps. The Scot was spun by Mike Rockenfeller and dropped right down the field. Di Resta was back up in the points towards the end of the race, but was once again hit by an Audi-driver, this time Miguel Molina, and dropped outside the points.

With Di Resta outside the points, Spengler reclaimed the championship lead and heads the table with 66 points against Di Resta’s 63 points ahead of the final race of the year at Shanghai in China.

Paffett is still in the running for the title, but only just on 57 points with 10 points left to fight for.

Mattias Ekström was initially involved in the fight for the lead. But the Swede lost a lot of time after a messy pitstop and dropped down to eight and claimed the final point ahead of Di Resta.

Markus Winkelhock was first driver outside the podium in fourth ahead of fellow Audi-drivers Oliver Jarvis and Martin Tomczyk.

Former F1 driver David Coulthard was the last man to make it in to top ten, just nine tenths of a second ahead of Rockenfeller.