August 15th, 2009
Pole for Tomczyk at the N?rburgring
DTM
N?rburg. And Audi it is again. Also in the sixth qualifying of the year, a driver of the car manufacturer from Ingolstadt claimed first place on the grid. German driver Martin Tomczyk lapped the 3.629 kilometres long sprint circuit of the N?rburgring in 1:23.489 and thus claimed his seventh pole position in the DTM. ?Of course, I am delighted with being on pole. The N?rburgring is one of my favourite circuits. After free practice this morning, I was really confident. Setting the fastest lap on Friday was the icing on the cake?, the 27-year old said. Alongside Tomczyk, Canadian Bruno Spengler will be starting from second place into Sunday?s race with his AMG Mercedes C-Class. He was 0.195 seconds down on the pole-sitter. After qualifying, Spengler said: ?To be honest, I am very happy with second place. That was far from easy today. However, I gave my best and the balance of the car was good. I will try to complete a race without any mistakes.?
In summer conditions, Mattias Ekstr?m with his Audi A4 DTM set the third-fastest time. Together with British driver Gary Paffett (Mercedes-Benz), the Swede is leading in the points? standings with 28 points. However, Paffett is in a significantly worse position for the race. Due to an engine misfire, he only reached 16th place on the starting grid. With Timo Scheider, another Audi driver is lining up on the second grid row alongside Ekstr?m. A situation that promises a lot of excitement in the race because the reigning DTM champion is only one point behind Ekstr?m.
British driver Oliver Jarvis again showed a good performance in qualifying. The best-placed driver of a 2008-spec car, the 25-year old Audi driver will be starting from fifth place into the sixth round of the season of the most popular international touring car series. For Ralf Schumacher (Mercedes-Benz), the four-heat qualifying session was already over after the first session. The ex-Formula 1 driver will be starting 15th.
The race on Sunday will cover a distance of 48 laps, equalling 174.192 kilometres. The start is at 14.00 h (ARD live from 13.45 h).
