Audi show true colours in practice

Audi's top names resisted the temptation to use new rubber yesterday, saving it instead for this morning's one-hour session. Martin Tomczyk, runner-up here in 2004, set the fastest time of 1:20.375, a tenth clear of teammate Mattias Ekstrom. Heinz-Harald Frenzten and '04 winner Tom Kristensen were next up, with Frank Stippler leading the 2005-spec cars in sixth.

Significantly, all six new tyre times by Audi were quicker than Jamie Green managed on fresh rubber on Friday.

Alexandros Margaritis kept up his impressive start to the season with the best Mercedes time in his 2005-car. Best of the works AMG cars was Green, but whereas he topped the times yesterday, he was down in 12th today.

Series leader Bernd Schneider was 16th, 1.1 seconds off the pace, and he suffered a grassy off at Turn 1.

The session was delayed for half an hour after 35 minutes in bizarre fashion, as gale-force winds caused advertising hoardings to flex the lighting gantries they had been attached to. Oschersleben's answer to Bob the Builder was required to take them down.

The red flag was a blessing for Audi's Timo Scheider. The right-side doors of his A4 flew off on the start/finish straight, but the delay allowed his Team Rosberg squad to effect repairs. He was 13th fastest.

                    
Pos  Driver                 Make       Time
 1.  Martin Tomczyk         Audi       1:20.375           
 2.  Mattias Ekstrom        Audi       1:20.490 
 3.  Heinz-Harald Frentzen  Audi       1:20.495
 4.  Tom Kristensen         Audi       1:20.611
 5.  Frank Stippler         Audi       1:20.712           
 6.  Alexandros Margaritis  Mercedes   1:20.829
 7.  Stefan Mucke           Mercedes   1:20.916
 8.  Pierre Kaffer          Audi       1:21.008
 9.  Jean Alesi             Mercedes   1:21.094           
10.  Christian Abt          Audi       1:21.183
11.  Daniel la Rosa         Mercedes   1:21.223 
12.  Jamie Green            Mercedes   1:21.254                   
13.  Timo Scheider          Audi       1:21.265 
14.  Bruno Spengler         Mercedes   1:21.277
15.  Mika Häkkinen          Mercedes   1:21.393                   
16.  Bernd Schneider        Mercedes   1:21.528
17.  Vanina Ickx            Audi       1:22.004
18.  Mathias Lauda          Mercedes   1:22.053
19.  Susie Stoddart         Mercedes   1:22.137                   
20.  Olivier Tielemans      Audi       1:22.497