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Tomczyk leads Audi 1-2-3 in Spain

Audi kept Tom Kristensen's DTM title hopes alive by annexing the top three places on the grid for Sunday's eighth round at Barcelona in Spain

But his big championship rival, Mercedes' Bernd Schneider, will start right behind Kristensen in fourth - and they had a big argument after the session!

Martin Tomczyk scored the fourth pole of his career, just pipping Abt Audi teammate Heinz-Harald Frentzen by 0.067 seconds in wet but drying weather conditions.

"I didn't expect this," said Tomczyk. "The result showed we got it right when it mattered."

Frentzen added: "It's been a good weekend so far, and we found some good consistency in the conditions."

Kristensen and Schneider will line up on row two, and even found time in the seven-minute final qualifying session to run close to each other on track, which led to an off-track spat between them.

Schneider felt Kristensen balked him on his out lap, which "was the reason I didn't go quicker", whereas TK countered he was further ahead of him than Bruno Spengler was in the previous qualifying at Zandvoort, telling Schneider: "I was more than 30-metres ahead of you; there's no need to complain about it."

Mika Hakkinen will start fifth in the second AMG Mercedes, ahead of Mattias Ekstrom (Audi), Frank Stippler (Audi) and Alexandros Margaritis (Mercedes).

Usual qualifying pacesetter Jamie Green will start a lowly 13th in his Mercedes, while teammate Bruno Spengler, who can still win the championship, will start 19th after being knocked out in the first qualifying session.

"It was disappointing," said Spengler. "I did a few mistakes and got a lot of traffic."

Strangely enough, one car that appeared to impede him was title rival Schneider... It seems the gloves are coming off.

Super Pole:

Pos  Driver           Car                    Time
 1.  Martin Tomczyk   Audi A4                1:13.900
 2.  H.H. Frentzen    Audi A4                1:13.967 + 0.067
 3.  Tom Kristensen   Audi A4                1:14.064 + 0.164
 4.  Bernd Schneider  AMG Mercedes C-Klasse  1:14.132 + 0.232
 5.  Mika Hakkinen    AMG Mercedes C-Klasse  1:14.157 + 0.257
 6.  Mattias Ekstrom  Audi A4                1:14.266 + 0.366
 7.  Frank Stippler   Audi A4                1:14.308 + 0.408
 8.  A. Margaritis    AMG Mercedes C-Klasse  1:14.883 + 0.983

Second session:

Pos  Driver           Car                    Time
 9.  Timo Scheider    Audi A4                1:14.686
10.  Mathias Lauda    AMG Mercedes C-Klasse  1:14.750 + 0.064
11.  Jean Alesi       AMG Mercedes C-Klasse  1:14.882 + 0.196
12.  Pierre Kaffer    Audi A4                1:15.006 + 0.320
13.  Jamie Green      AMG Mercedes C-Klasse  1:15.057 + 0.371
14.  Vanina Ickx      Audi A4                1:15.278 + 0.592

First session:

Pos  Driver           Car                    Time
15.  Nicolas Kiesa    Audi A4                1:15.167
16.  Christian Abt    Audi A4                1:15.263 + 0.096
17.  Daniel La Rosa   AMG Mercedes C-Klasse  1:15.266 + 0.099
18.  Stefan Mucke     AMG Mercedes C-Klasse  1:15.277 + 0.110
19.  Bruno Spengler   AMG Mercedes C-Klasse  1:15.324 + 0.157
20.  Susie Stoddart   AMG Mercedes C-Klasse  1:15.407 + 0.240

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