Audi dominated as defending champion Mattias Ekstrom took victory at Hockenheim.
Swedish driver Ekstrom led an Audi 1-2-3, Timo Scheider and a distant Tom Kristensen making up the podium. Scheider was close to Ekstrom all race, pushing him hard and rarely falling more than a second behind. Bruno Spengler was the highest placed Mercedes in 4th, with another Audi, Marting Tomczyk in 5th. Tomczyk was unable to find a way past the Mercedes of Spengler, depite nearly colliding with him with 2 laps to go.
Jamie Green was 6th after a queit race, and former champion Gary Paffet was 7th in his 2007 spec car. Debutant and former Grand Prix winner Ralf Schumacher was 14th. He had a quiet race and was unable to get close enough to the battle between Alexandre Premat, Markus Winkelhock and Paul di Resta too attempt a move.
Former Formula 1 driver Christijan Albers was the only non finisher.
Selected Driver Quotes
"The car was simply fantastic. I want to thank Audi Sport and everyone in my team who had a part in creating such a good car. These were the best prerequisites. I was able to really enjoy the race because the car did everything I expect a racing car to do. In the end, we clinched places one to three, which is great for the team. I think after such a good weekend, we definitely deserved this result." Mattias Ekstrom, P1
"At my first DTM race the atmosphere was fantastic, which was a pleasant experience. Unfortunately, our race didn’t go according to plan because we had a few problems. But we did finish and can learn from this." Katherine Legge, P18
"We had a very good day on Saturday, but Sunday was a bad day. I had a normal start. After that, I was fighting with Markus Winkelhock and the other Audi drivers. But then Ralf Schumacher came from behind and hit my right front wheel. As a result my suspension broke." Christijan Albers, DNF
"My race was good even though it hadn’t started well. I lost a few places at the start. The car had a great setup and was running very well over the whole distance. After my second pit stop I caught Bruno (Spengler). It was a very tough but always fair duel. I was lacking a tiny bit of speed to overtake him. It was the first race, so a scoring points is more important than trying to force the issue." Martin Tomczyk, P5
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