• Position three for runner-up in the standings at the EuroSpeedway
  • Four Audi A4 DTM cars on top seven grid positions
  • Mike Rockenfeller and Timo Scheider on third row
DTM 2010

With four vehicles on the top seven grid positions Audi starts to the third race of the 2010 DTM season at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz (Sunday live on “Das Erste” starting at 1:45 p.m. local time). Valencia winner Mattias Ekström, who posted the third-best time in Saturday’s qualifying, again spearheads the squad.

With a time of 1m 18.973s, the Swede from Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline merely had to admit a narrow defeat to the two Mercedes drivers Paul Di Resta (1m 18.772s) and Bruno Spengler (1m 18.807s) in the battle for the pole position. “My car wasn’t quite as good on used tires any more as it had been before on new tires in Q3,” explained Ekström. “In addition, I made a small mistake. Still, I’m quite happy with grid position three because we’ve clearly made progress on this track which has never been easy for us. I’m very excited about the race.”

The second-best Audi driver in qualifying was Mike Rockenfeller in the 2008-spec A4 of Audi Sport Team Phoenix, who had set the fastest times in both free practice sessions on Friday afternoon and on Saturday morning and missed the shoot-out for the top four grid positions in fifth place by merely 62 thousandths of a second.

“As at the previous two events, my team again gave me a good Audi in which even Q4 would have been possible. I’m very optimistic about the race,” said Rockenfeller, who will share the third row with Timo Scheider. The reigning DTM Champion clinched position six as his so far best qualifying result in the current season. Rockenfeller’s team colleague Alexandre Prémat secured seventh place.

Martin Tomczyk (grid position ten), Miguel Molina (grid position eleven) and Oliver Jarvis (grid position 13) were eliminated in Q2, Markus Winkelhock (15) and Katherine Legge (18) as early as in the first qualifying segment.

“Obviously we’re not happy with the fact that Mattias (Ekström) was the only one of our drivers to make it into Q4 and that two of our current-specification cars were eliminated as early as in Q2,” said Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich. “This shows how tough the DTM is. Mercedes was a bit stronger in qualifying on this difficult circuit. We’re continuing to work hard on putting our cars on the track so that they’ll be consistently fast across the whole distance. We’ve seen many great races here at the EuroSpeedway – and the fans can look forward to seeing a great race again this time too.”

Audi’s last victory at the EuroSpeedway to date was clinched in 2005 by Mattias Ekström. The Swede had started from position five at that time.