Scheider takes maiden win with ease
| By Glenn Freeman |
Sunday, April 20th 2008, 13:41 GMT |
 Timo Scheider completed a dominant weekend at Oschersleben by comfortably taking his maiden DTM win on Sunday.
The Audi driver was never threatened through the race, and he calmly handled a late safety car period to ease away from Martin Tomczyk in the closing laps.
Tomczyk ran second throughout the race, although he had no answer to the pace of his Abt Sportsline teammate.
Tom Kristensen had taken the lead at the start, but once he served a drive through penalty for jumping the lights, Bruno Spengler and Paul di Resta ran third and fourth throughout the race, unable to hang on to the leaders.
Another driver to drop out of contention at the start was Oliver Jarvis, who spun at Turn 2 after contact with Jamie Green.
Green then came through a tough midfield battle with Mattias Ekstrom and Mike Rockenfeller to take fifth, although in the closing laps the Mercedes driver had to fend off Markus Winkelhock, who had jumped his Audi teammates during the pitstops.
Ekstrom, who moved from eighth to fifth in the early stages of the race, had a difficult afternoon. The reigning champion initially held off a queue of cars that was headed by Rockenfeller and Green, and both were able to pass the Swede on track shortly after the second round of pitstops.
Alexandre Premat then put a lot of pressure on last weekend's race winner, but he was unable to find a way through.
Kristensen had worked his way back into the top 10 by the closing stages, but he went off at the triple left-hander, collecting Maro Engel as his car slid across the track.
Their collision took both out of the race, handing 10th place to Ralf Schumacher. Pos Driver Make Time
1. Timo Scheider Audi 1h06:07.822
2. Martin Tomczyk Audi + 1.452
3. Bruno Spengler Mercedes + 3.751
4. Paul Di Resta Mercedes + 4.698
5. Jamie Green Mercedes + 6.044
6. M.Winkelhock Audi + 6.595
7. M.Rockenfeller Audi + 7.663
8. Mattias Ekstrom Audi + 11.765
9. Alexandre Premat Audi + 12.929
10. Ralf Schumacher Mercedes + 13.656
11. Gary Paffett Mercedes + 14.323
12. Bernd Schneider Mercedes + 15.926
13. Mathias Lauda Mercedes + 16.856
14. Susie Stoddart Mercedes + 17.961
15. Oliver Jarvis Audi + 18.543
16. Christijan Albers Audi + 22.621
17. Katherine Legge Audi + 1 Lap
18. Maro Engel Mercedes + 9 Laps
19. Tom Kristensen Audi + 9 Laps
Fastest lap: Scheider, 1:23.236 on lap 17
|
