• Suspense before DTM qualifying at EuroSpeedway
  • Yvonne Catterfeld keeps fingers crossed for Audi squad
  • Actress portraying “Lara Croft” visits Martin Tomczyk
DTM 2007
Audi A4 DTM #20 (Futurecom TME), Adam Carroll

DTM fans can look forward to a thrilling qualifying at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz: In both of the two 90-minute test sessions on Friday the DTM field presented itself in an ultra-compact and colourful mix yet again. The quickest Audi driver was Adam Carroll (Great Britain). The DTM newcomer from the Audi customer team Futurecom TME drives the Audi A4 DTM that – due to the regulations – has the lowest weight.

Only marginally slower were Christian Abt (Audi Sport Team Phoenix) and Mattias Ekström (Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline) as the best drivers of a 2006-spec and a 2007-spec A4 DTM. Like all other Audi drivers, on Friday they concentrated on finding an optimal race set-up for the modified circuit while using as few sets of tyres as possible.

A solid performance was shown by Markus Winkelhock: On his first “day at work” in the Siemens Audi A4 DTM the Formula 1 test driver was no more than barely three tenths of a second slower than the Championship leader Mattias Ekström.

The cards will be put on the table for the first time at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz in Saturday’s qualifying. ARD will broadcast the three-part shoot-out for the best grid positions live from the venue, starting at 1:30 p.m. (local time).

Among those keeping their fingers crossed for the Audi squad will be Yvonne Catterfeld. The singer and actress will be a guest of Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline at the EuroSpeedway. Martin Tomczyk, as well, is expecting a special guest: Karima Adebibe, the actress who has followed Angelina Jolie in portraying “Lara Croft”.

Quotes after Friday’s tests

Dr Wolfgang Ullrich (Head of Audi Motorsport):
“As expected, we’re having a very difficult time with the 2007-spec cars due to their weight. Mattias (Ekström) has found a decent set-up for the car. We’ll try and apply that to the other cars. With the 2006- and 2005-spec cars, we’re going to consolidate all the information in order to come up with the best set-up as well. Today’s result doesn’t look all that great for us. Tomorrow we’ll see where we really stand.”

Adam Carroll (Audi A4 DTM #20)
9th place / 6th place, 1m 20.189s

“The day was great. The car’s got good balance. We worked through our programme as planned and kept finding different things. The most difficult part is making optimal use of the new tyres. Hopefully, we’ll be able to keep the pace and fight at the front of the field.”

Christian Abt (Playboy Audi A4 DTM #16)
3rd place / 10th place, 1m 20.306s

“On the whole, I’m satisfied. We did a lot for the race and are well sorted. I’m very satisfied with our performance compared with the other Audi drivers. Now we need to keep this level until Sunday.”

Mattias Ekström (Red Bull Audi A4 DTM #3)
4th place / 11th place, 1m 20.315s

“My Friday was okay. We learned a lot and tried out a lot to get to know our Audi better with its high weight. The first turn is quite alright. Although I wished the kerbs were a bit different – but you don’t always get what you want.”

Timo Scheider (Gebrauchtwagen:plus/Top Service Audi A4 DTM #8)
13th place / 12th place, 1m 20.341s

“My times in the various sectors were very good but, unfortunately, I never managed to put them together in a perfect lap. Still, I’m pretty satisfied. The new first turn is still the number one crunch and fuels a lot of discussions among the drivers. While practicing the start, precisely the thing I’d been fearing happened: Bernd (Schneider) and I were side by side and despite this we both almost had to hit our brakes all-out in order to get through unscathed. If that’ll be the case in the race, as well, the fans will be in for an exciting start…”

Alexandre Prémat (Audi Bank Audi A4 DTM #17)
14th place / 13th place, 1m 20.372s

“We did a lot of work because I haven’t driven the car for a longer period of time. Our place isn’t bad at all but the times are extremely close together. That’s why the qualifying will be very important. The engineers and mechanics did a good job. Lap by lap we improved – a good sign for Saturday. I have a lot of confidence in the car and feel no more pains as a result of my accident.”

Lucas Luhr (Philips Audi A4 DTM #12)
16th place / 15th place, 1m 20.461s

“We did quite a bit of driving and learned a lot in the process. If you look at the gaps you can see that almost all 20 cars are spread across just a few tenths. We’re still lacking one or two tenths, then we’ll be part of the front of the field. Generally speaking, I’m quite satisfied although it’s never nice being merely in 15th place. Under today’s circumstances, though, we achieved the best possible result.”

Mike Rockenfeller (S line Audi A4 DTM #11)
10th place / 16th place, 1m 20.492s

“This is my first time here with the DTM car. We tried out a lot of things. I’m not completely satisfied yet with our balance. I do believe, though, that we’ll be able to show quite a bit more on Saturday. We’re not where we should be in qualifying. We still need to improve our times somewhat. I’m pretty confident.”

Markus Winkelhock (Siemens Audi A4 DTM #7)
19th place / 17th place, 1 m20.560s

“For starters, my first day of work with Audi was huge fun. I still need to change my driving style a bit more because I continue driving to aggressively. But lap by lap I’m getting more used to the A4. After free practice tomorrow, I’ll be ready for the qualifying session.”

Martin Tomczyk (Red Bull Audi A4 DTM #4)
15th place / 18th place, 1m 20.715s

“The day was fair to middling. The car feels good and we hardly had any difficulties doing our work – but for some reason we don’t seem to be achieving the lap times we’d like to have. So, our main task for Saturday will be to do an even better job of finding out how we can make better use of the new tyres.”

Vanina Ickx (Audi A4 DTM #21)
20th place / 20th place, 1m 21.816s

“I’m happy to be driving on the EuroSpeedway again. The weather, too, is favourable. Between the morning and the afternoon, we clearly improved the car and tried out many things. Some of them worked quite well. There were some crucial steps involved to help us get a better understanding of the car.”

Hans-Jürgen Abt (Team Director Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline): “It was obvious that we’d be having a very difficult time with so much weight on board. Today was about finding a set-up that matches the weight. That’s why we didn’t pay so much attention to the times. But we’re not completely satisfied yet. As always, we need to sort everything on Friday and consolidate the results. On Saturday, we want to improve.”

Ernst Moser (Team Director Audi Sport Team Phoenix): “The set-up of our cars was a bit stiff. We had to respond to this. There are more kerbs to be driven over than we thought. Toward the end of the second session we managed to come up with a good set-up for both cars. Unfortunately, we haven’t developed enough grip yet on new tyres. We need to work on this Saturday morning. Otherwise, I’ve got no complaints – except that Mercedes are extremely strong with Bruno Spengler. This concerns me a bit.”

Arno Zensen (Team Director Audi Sport Team Rosberg): “Things didn’t go quite the way we’d expected. We’re not getting around the corners the way we should and need to analyse the reasons. This means there’s still a lot of work for us to do in that area.”