Albers and Merc gather speed

The young Dutchman was driving the new C-Class destined for his team-mate Bernd Schneider, and put the 2003 championship-winning team back to the fore after the new Mercedes had lagged slightly behind rivals Opel and Audi in tests to date.

Albers was pleased with the step forward, but confident that there's still more to come. "With my engineer and AMG technical chief Gerhard Unger I found a good set up," said Albers. "We worked well but we've not yet reached the limits. There is still potential in the AMG Mercedes C-Class."

Laurent Aiello's Saturday time in the Opel Vectra stands as the second best of the test, two tenths of a second down on Albers' mark, while Marcel Fassler's Opel was second best on Sunday, when Peter Dumbreck was third best for Opel, with Martin Tomczyk the fastest of the Audi drivers with fourth best time.

The teams are all working towards the first round of the 2004 DTM at Hockenheim on April 18 and Albers does not believe a true picture of the manufacturers' respective form will emerge until then.

"We can't read too much into the results of the test here at Brno," he said. "We will only find out where we stand at Hockenheim. In any case, I'm happy with the test and glad I could do so many laps. I'm really looking forward to the start of the season."

Christijan Albers, Mercedes, 1m53.648
Marcel Fassler, Opel, 1m54.269s
Peter Dumbreck, Opel, 1m54.469s
Martin Tomczyk, Audi, 1m54.543s
Frank Biela, Audi A4, 1m54.666s
Timo Scheider, Opel, 1m54.887s