Ekstrom wins as Audi dominate
Mattias Ekstrom started his DTM title defence with victory at Hockenheim, as Audi dominated the race
The Swede led home an Audi 1-2-3, as Timo Scheider stalked him for the entire race distance, rarely falling more than a second behind his team-mate.
Tom Kristensen took a lonely third, although he slowed by six seconds on the final lap and only narrowly held onto the place.
Martin Tomczyk nearly made it an Audi lockout of the top four places, but the German was unable to find a way round Bruno Spengler, who was the lead Mercedes on a difficult day for the former champions.
Tomczyk tried an optimistic move at the hairpin with two laps to go, but he ran very wide and did well not to collect the Canadian.
Spengler and Paul di Resta initially chased the lead pair, but di Resta lost more than 30 seconds with a clutch problem at his second pit stop, and Spengler lacked the pace to keep up with the leaders. He lost out to Kristensen during the second round of stops, and spent the closing laps of the race fending off the charging Tomczyk.
Jamie Green came home sixth for Mercedes after a quiet race, while Gary Paffett took seventh. The former champion ran as high as sixth in the early laps, but his 2007-spec car was no match for the frontrunners.
Bernd Schneider took the final point, ahead of Oliver Jarvis. The Audi rookie moved up to sixth at the start of the race, but he was quickly shuffled back to ninth in the early laps.
Ralf Schumacher had a quiet afternoon on his DTM debut, eventually finishing 14th. The former grand prix winner closed in on the battle between Alexandre Premat, Markus Winkelhock and di Resta in the closing stages, but was unable to get close enough to attack.
Pos Driver Car Time
1. Mattias Ekstrom Audi 59:17.726
2. Timo Scheider Audi +0.824
3. Tom Kristensen Audi +19.604
4. Bruno Spengler Mercedes +20.872
5. Martin Tomczyk Audi +21.269
6. Jamie Green Mercedes +33.019
7. Gary Paffett Mercedes +33.956
8. Bernd Schneider Mercedes +34.726
9. Oliver Jarvis Audi +40.270
10. Mike Rockenfeller Audi +41.798
11. Alexandre Premat Audi +46.339
12. Markus Winkelhock Audi +46.950
13. Paul Di Resta Mercedes +47.867
14. Ralf Schumacher Mercedes +49.873
15. Mathias Lauda Mercedes +56.308
16. Susie Stoddart Mercedes +1:03.824
17. Maro Engel Mercedes +1:05.161
18. Katherine Legge Audi +1:33.669
Not classified
Driver Car Laps
Christijan Albers Audi 3
Fastest lap: Di Resta, 1:34.104 on lap 15
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