Fassler Gives Opel Ray of Hope
Marcel Fassler gave Opel a ray of hope as it searches for its first DTM race victory in four-and-a-half years, when he set the pace in the final practice session before qualifying at the Nurburgring in Germany on Saturday morning
Benefiting from running on minimum success ballast, minus 20-kilos from the base weight, the Swiss driver's Vectra GTS leapt to the top of the times in the dying seconds of the session on 1:23.256 - 0.025 faster than reigning champion Mattias Ekstrom in his Audi A4, which is running on the base weight this weekend. Bruno Spengler made it all three marques in the top three places in his year-old Mercedes C-Class.
Heinz-Harald Frentzen backed up Fassler's efforts by taking fourth spot in the second Opel, ahead of Audi's Martin Tomczyk, who topped the times yesterday before it began to rain.
Carrying maximum success ballast seems to be affecting the Mercedes drivers much more at the Nurburgring than anywhere else this season. As Spengler's car is 2004-spec, he is immune from running the extra weight, so the first of the works AMG machines, which are carrying 20 extra kilos, was Bernd Schneider down in sixth.
Series points leader, Gary Paffett, was only ninth fastest, four-tenths off the leading pace.
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