Mattias Ekström starts the weekend on top

Mattias Ekström (Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline) set the fastest time in the first free practice session celebrated this morning, first assault of the tenth and last race of the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, which takes place at Hockenheim this weekend. The Swede clocked a fastest time of 1:34.136 to bring his Audi RS 5 DTM to the top of the time sheets, in a race where Audi hopes to challenge BMW for the Manufacturers’ title.

The session started on time, with an agreeable early morning sun. As it’s usual for first free practice, teams focussed race setup work.

Zandvoort winner Mattias Ekström was the latest to take to the track, and only after his team mate at Audi Team Abt Sportsline, Miguel Molina, had completed a few laps. Molina was on a long run, staying on track for 10 laps under the close watch from Audi’s Motorsport Director, Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich.

Ekström completed 26 laps, to score a best time of 1:34.136. He was closely followed by Mercedes’ Daniel Juncadella, just 82 thousands of a second adrift in his C-Coupé DTM, sporting the new aero package from the Stuttgart manufacturer.

2014 champion Marco Wittmann was the best placed BMW driver, a further 12 thousands behind Juncadella in the M4 DTM. The Team RMG driver was one of the least active drivers in the session.

Fourth was BMW Team MTEK’s Timo Glock, followed by the Audi trio formed by Timo Scheider, Adrien Tambay and Miguel Molina.

Paul Di Resta in the HWA Mercedes was ninth, with Audi Team Rosberg’s Nico Müller completing the top 10.

The session was trouble free and very competitive, with the first 20 cars within one second, but several drivers received warnings for exceeding the track limits.

The second free practice session is scheduled for 11:15 CEST.