By Glenn Freeman Monday, July 30th 2007, 11:48 GMT
Alexandre Premat has said the decision to hand victory to Martin Tomczyk on the last lap at Zandvoort was completely his own choice.
The Frenchman had been heading for his maiden DTM victory at the Dutch circuit on Sunday, but he slowed on the final lap, allowing Tomczyk to take victory as they came out of the final corner.
"I did it myself," said Premat. "I need points, but it's more important for Martin and Mattias (Ekstrom) to score a lot of points for the championship.
"They are fighting with Mercedes to win the championship, and I will do everything to help them."
Audi's head of motorsport Wolfgang Ullrich added that the drivers were given no instructions from the pit wall in the closing laps.
"There was not a decision from anybody on our side," he said. "It was something that the drivers did.
"What happened was just fair give and take from all the cars. They had one target, to get a good result for Audi."
Tomczyk, who moved into second place in the standings with his victory, said that the result was a demonstration of the team spirit at Audi.
"We are all professional enough to know what we have to do," he said. "I have to say thanks to Alex.
"We showed a perfect team support, and I think when you fight so hard for a championship, this was the best result we could achieve at the moment."
Behind Premat and Tomczyk, Timo Scheider made a similar decision, as he gave up his first DTM podium to let championship leader Ekstrom take third place.
