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A lap around Hockenheim with Audi’s Adrien Tambay

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Prior to the first qualifying session of the 2013 DTM season, Audi’s Adrien Tambay explained the secrets to a successful lap at Hockenheim to TouringCarTimes.

Tambay, who made his DTM debut at Hockenheim last year with the Audi Sport Team Abt, qualified 12th in his first outing at the circuit and will be seeking to improve on that in tomorrow’s qualifying.

When asked where he thinks he can qualify, he replied: “Where do I think I can qualify? I know where I want to qualify, but I don’t know where I can.”

“You go into the first corner, which is the quickest one of the track; it’s a very nice, short right-hander and you go into it in fourth or fifth gear at around 200 kilometers per hour.

“Then you change up [the gears] on the sort-of straight until the second corner which is tricky, because it actually goes onto the longest straight of the track; this corner is a right hander which closes to a left-hander which you have to take flat. However, you have to be very early on the throttle out of there, so it’s quite tricky to compromise.

“You then arrive at the long straight, which isn’t actually very straight at all! It’s a parabolica, followed by the hairpin which is the biggest braking zone on the track; up there it’s important to get good braking efficiency and then good traction out of it, because you have to make a proper ‘v-style’ to stop the car and then get back on the throttle as soon as possible.

“Afterwards there is a little straight going into a right corner which is easy flat, and then you have to place yourself back on the right-hand side of the track for some quite hard braking at the Mercedes arena; that’s a bit more open and is similar to corner two.

“Then there’s a right-hander, that if you are good in qualifying, you should be able take flat.

“Change up again until the next quick corner of the track, which is the entry to the stadium; there you should be in fourth, and it’s all about having as much speed as possible into there as you don’t have a long straight afterwards.

“That straight then drives you into the Sachs corner, which is a tricky one with a special line; you kind of ride the outside of it and have very positive camber. You then arrive at the last two corners in third gear; they’re a very tricky and technical part of the track as you can very easily lose time there as they’re a double right hander; actually if you take the last one flat, that’s a good job and then you cross the line.”