From the racetrack Audi motorsport news

Jun 28, 2008

The fifth round of the 2008 DTM in Nuremberg promises to become the most thrilling one of the year. The fiercely competitive qualifying on Saturday confirmed that Audi with the new A4 has realistic chances of putting an end to the string of Norisring wins Mercedes has clinched since 2003.

Timo Scheider as the best Audi driver will start from the second row, Martin Tomczyk, Tom Kristensen and Mattias Ekström from positions five, six and eight. This means that on the grid all four new Audi A4 DTM cars are "lying in wait” on rows two, three and four.

During the qualifying, Timo Scheider even gave the many Audi fans in the stands at the Norisring reason to dream of a pole position: In the second session, the leader of the standings was the first Audi driver to break the 48-second sound barrier, clearly setting a best time of 47.877 seconds.

In the third and decisive segment, however, the Oschersleben winner did not quite equal his fastest lap. By merely 65 thousandths of a second, the German missed a position on the front row of the grid, which he would have achieved with his time set in the second session. Only marginally slower than Scheider were Martin Tomczyk, Tom Kristensen and Mattias Ekström. All four drivers from Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline were lying within 159 thousandths of a second.

The best driver of an A4 from last year was the Frenchman Alexandre Prémat, who secured tenth place on the grid. His team-mate from Audi Sport Team Phoenix, Oliver Jarvis, made it into the second qualifying segment at his Norisring début as well. The young Brit will start to the race from position 13.

For the the drivers of Audi Sport Team Rosberg and the Audi Futurecom-TME customer team, the qualifying ended after the first session. They will be starting from places 16 (Mike Rockenfeller), 17 (Christijan Albers), 18 (Markus Winkelhock) and 19 (Katherine Legge).

The DTM race at the Norisring will start at 2:03 p.m. local time on Sunday. ARD will broadcast the race in Nuremberg live on "Das Erste” starting at 1:45 p.m.

The starting grid in Nuremberg
1 Bruno Spengler (Mercedes) 47.785s
2 Jamie Green (Mercedes) 47.963s
3 Paul di Resta (Mercedes) 47.969s
4 Timo Scheider (GW:plus/Top Service Audi A4 DTM) 48.028s
5 Martin Tomczyk (Red Bull Audi A4 DTM) 48.041s
6 Tom Kristensen (Audi A4 DTM) 48.136s
7 Bernd Schneider (Mercedes) 48.168s
8 Mattias Ekström (Red Bull Audi A4 DTM) 48.187s
9 Gary Paffett (Mercedes) 48.295s
10 Alexandre Prémat (Audi Bank/Shell Helix Audi A4 DTM) 48.375s
11 Ralf Schumacher (Mercedes) 48.417s
12 Maro Engel (Mercedes) 48.538s
13 Oliver Jarvis (Best Buddies Audi A4 DTM) 48.565s
14 Mathias Lauda (Mercedes) 48.663s
15 Susie Stoddart (Mercedes) 48.581s
16 Mike Rockenfeller (S line Audi A4 DTM) 48.627s
17 Christijan Albers (Audi A4 DTM) 48.658s
18 Markus Winkelhock (Playboy Audi A4 DTM) 48.662s
19 Katherine Legge (Audi A4 DTM) 48.829s