Free practice: Reuter leads the way

The only Mercedes which came close to denting Opel's armour was recently-crowned champion Bernd Schneider, who finished the two hours of running in sixth but, ominously, was over a second shy of Reuter. Uwe Alzen, Michael Bartels, Eric Helary and Joachim Winkelhock backed up Reuter's efforts by eclipsing Schneider's best time in their Astra V8 Coupes.

The Abt Audi TT-Rs, which were expected to make full use of their straightline advantage at the high-speed venue, only just scraped into the top ten and were slower through the speed traps than the Opels. Christian Abt shaded out former BTCC champ Laurent Aiello by a tenth of a second for eighth place. Opel youngsters Timo Scheider (seventh) and Christian Menzel (tenth) added to Merc's gloom as the majority of the Three Pointed Star's machines languished at the wrong end of the times.

Scot Peter Dumbreck (Mercedes) was 15th quickest, a full two seconds slower than Reuter, while Englishmen James Thompson (Audi) and Darren Turner (Mercedes) were 18th and 19th respectively.


1 Manuel Reuter, Opel, 2m08.494s
2 Uwe Alzen, Opel, 2m08.526s
3 Michael Bartels, Opel, 2m09.039s
4 Eric Helary, Opel, 2m09.094s
5 Joachim Winkelhock, Opel, 2m09.194s
6 Bernd Schneider, Mercedes, 2m 09.574s
7 Timo Scheider, Opel, 2m 09.650s
8 Christian Abt, Audi, 2m 09.650s
9 Laurent Aiello, Audi, 2m 09.758s
10 Christian Menzel, Opel, 2m 10.148s
15 Peter Dumbreck, Mercedes, 2m10.576s
18 James Thompson, Audi, 2m11.047s
19 Darren Turner, Mercedes, 2m11.125s