30th April, 2011
Season opener at Hockenheim: pole for Bruno Spengler
DTM
Hockenheim. This DTM season opener was quite to the liking of the fans. In summer-like temperatures, the spectators were treated to an entertaining qualifying at the Hockenheimring Baden-Württemberg. Mercedes-Benz driver Bruno Spengler celebrated the first pole position of the year. The 27-year old Canadian completed the lap of the 4.574 kilometres long track in 1:34-270 minutes. “Qualifying was great, my car was perfect. I am really happy. My motivation is massive as ever and of course, a race win would be the best possible way to start the season. But there are still many kilometres to go until the chequered flag on Sunday. Obviously, I will be giving everything”, said Spengler, who will be starting from first place on the grid on Sunday for the eighth time in his DTM career.
Swede Mattias Ekström with his Audi A4 DTM was just beaten. In the fourth and final qualifying heat, he was 0.132 seconds down on the pole-sitter. “It just wasn’t enough. Bruno has achieved a very good lap and deserved pole. My hand that was broken a while ago didn’t cause any problems today, but it could become painful during the race. I just have to put my head down and push the throttle”, said the ’wild old man’, as Ekström said about himself. Third fastest in qualifying on Saturday afternoon was Ralf Schumacher (Mercedes-Benz), who will be starting from the third row on the grid alongside two times’ DTM champion, Audi driver Timo Scheider.
Last year’s winner of the Le Mans 24 Hours, Mike Rockenfeller (Audi) was only two thousandths of a second short of making it into the top four. He was followed by fellow Audi driver Martin Tomczyk, Mercedes-Benz driver Maro Engel and Miguel Molina (Audi) in sixth to eighth place.
The three DTM rookies Christian Vietoris (Mercedes-Benz), Edoardo Mortara (Audi) from Italy and Dutchman Renger van der Zande (Mercedes-Benz) were also quite happy. In ninth, tenth and eleventh place respectively, they just failed to make it into the third heat.
The 2010 DTM runner-up Gary Paffett had a rather poor start into the season. The British Mercedes-Benz driver came off the track after a driving error in qualifying and will only be starting 18th on Sunday.
Even though reigning DTM champion Paul Di Resta will not be defending his title, the current Formula 1 driver didn’t want to miss out on watching the DTM season opener live. “It was important for me to come to the season opener, because I hadn’t been able to thank everybody after the finale at Shanghai and my title win. This weekend, I will be making up for that”, Di Resta said. He was accompanied by Nico Rosberg, who stepped into a DTM car for the first time in his career and drove a few laps with the AMG Mercedes C-Class, much to the delight of the spectators. “That is quite a different feeling from driving a Formula 1 car. But by stepping up into Formula 1, Paul has demonstrated how high the level in the DTM is. Racing in this series surely would be fun”, said Rosberg.
The opening round of the 2011 DTM season will be covering 38 laps and a total distance of 173.812 kilometres. The start is at 14.00 h, ARD is broadcasting live from 13.50 h.
