Defending DTM champion Timo Scheider claims pole at Norisring

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Nuremberg. A mix of thunderstorms, rain and sunshine made qualifying for the third DTM round of the season at the Norisring in Nuremberg a thrilling affair. Reigning DTM champion Timo Scheider coped best with the difficult conditions in his Audi A4 DTM. With a lap time of 49.012 seconds, the 30-year old set the fastest time at the 2.3 kilometres long street circuit. ?After four years, we have claimed the first pole position for Audi at the Norisring today. Of course, you always try to remain unaffected by the weather. But finding the right set-up was difficult today. Fortunately, we have made the right decisions?, said a happy Scheider. The German just prevented his fellow Audi driver Mattias Ekstr?m from taking his third consecutive pole position. Scheider?s margin over Ekstr?m was only one tenth of a second. For the Audi driver, it is the seventh pole of his DTM career and for Audi, it is the third pole in a row this season and the 47th in total.

Last year?s pole-sitter at the Norisring, Canadian Mercedes-Benz driver Bruno Spengler, will be starting from third place into Sunday?s race. ?Today, qualifying was really difficult. There has never been as much radio contact between the team and myself as in this qualifying. However, in these conditions, I am quite happy with third place?, Spengler said. The 2005 DTM champion, Gary Paffett (GB), will be starting from fifth place with his AMG Mercedes C-Class.

As some drivers completed ten instead of eight laps in the third heat of the four-tier qualifying, the stewards of the meeting currently are deciding about the places five to 19. The main victim is Mercedes-Benz driver Ralf Schumacher, who missed out on the top four as a result. 20th place remains vacant, because the Kolles Futurecom-TME team withdrew its car with driver Johannes Seidlitz for the third round of the season.

The final result will follow after the official confirmation by the DMSB.

The race on Sunday will be covering a distance of 80 laps or a total of 184 kilometres. The start is at 14.00 h (ARD live from 13.45 h).

[fasteddy]

Green tops Norisring practice

By Glenn Freeman    Saturday, June 27th 2009, 10:34 GMT

Jamie Green, Mercedes, Norisring practice 2009Last year's Norisring race winner Jamie Green topped the times in DTM free practice in his one-year-old Mercedes on Saturday.

The British driver, who is driving the same car that he took to victory on the street track one year ago following his demotion to an older car this season, was one of the first to do a qualifying simulation run in the closing minutes of the session, and he sat in the pits for the last five minutes as the rest of the field tried to topple his best effort.

Bruno Spengler, another former Norisring winner, came closest but was unable to improve after getting within one tenth of a second of Green's pace.

Mattias Ekstrom was third for Audi, after the Abt Sportsline team experimented with downforce levels on its cars.

Audi traditionally takes several of the aero devices off of the front of its A4s for this track, but it did start putting some elements back on to some of its cars during the middle part of the session.

After spending most of practice towards the bottom of the timesheets, Ralf Schumacher put in a strong lap towards the end which initially put him second behind Green. However, as others improved, the ex-Formula 1 racer eventually had to settle for fifth quickest, just ahead of two-time Norisring winner Gary Paffett.

Alexandre Premat was the top 2008-spec Audi after trading blows at the top with Green for a while. The Frenchman had an eventful session, which included several big lock-ups into the hairpins, and even a spin at the last corner on one of his hot laps.

The morning timetable required a bit of a shuffle to enable the drivers to get any significant track time, as the session was delayed for 90 minutes when some drain covers came loose on the track in the first 30 minutes, damaging any cars that ran over them.

The Audis of Mike Rockenfeller and Katherine Legge made slight contact with the drains which made their cars jump through the air, while Markus Winkelhock destroyed the floor and rear of his car when he smashed into one on the main straight.

Officials spent a long time working on a solution, choosing to weld some of the drains down, while the one destroyed by Winkelhock was filled with cement.

The session restarted once that was complete, but the main straight was placed under yellow flags with the cement area deemed out of bounds to enable it to set properly.

Pos  Driver              Car       Time     Gap
 1.  Jamie Green         Mercedes  48.405s
 2.  Bruno Spengler      Mercedes  48.466s  + 0.061s
 3.  Mattias Ekstrom     Audi      48.547s  + 0.142s
 4.  Timo Scheider       Audi      48.553s  + 0.148s
 5.  Ralf Schumacher     Mercedes  48.608s  + 0.203s
 6.  Gary Paffett        Mercedes  48.614s  + 0.209s
 7.  Alexandre Premat    Audi      48.634s  + 0.229s
 8.  Paul di Resta       Mercedes  48.689s  + 0.284s
 9.  Mathias Lauda       Mercedes  48.710s  + 0.305s
10.  Maro Engel          Mercedes  48.768s  + 0.363s
11.  Martin Tomczyk      Audi      48.787s  + 0.382s
12.  Tom Kristensen      Audi      48.791s  + 0.386s
13.  Susie Stoddart      Mercedes  48.851s  + 0.446s
14.  Mike Rockenfeller   Audi      48.856s  + 0.451s
15.  Oliver Jarvis       Audi      48.995s  + 0.590s
16.  Katherine Legge     Audi      49.072s  + 0.667s
17.  Markus Winkelhock   Audi      49.160s  + 0.755s
18.  Tomas Kostka        Audi      49.388s  + 0.983s
19.  Christian Bakkerud  Audi      49.399s  + 0.994s