Free practice: More success on the cards for Audi?

The Abt squad's German youngster Martin Tomczyk just held on to the top spot despite a late attack from reigning champion Bernd Schneider's Mercedes, which failed to depose him by just 0.042secs. Bernd then proved just how hard he was pushing by going off at the first corner on his next lap, so we can safely assume there's no sandbagging going on in the AMG camp.

Schneider was backed up by D2 AMG Merc team mate Peter Dumbreck, who claims the reason he loves the Sachsenring is "because it's mental, just like me!" The Scot was third quickest, a further 0.03secs in arrears.

Schneider had topped Friday's testing times, but had to play second fiddle to three of the Abt Audis in the morning session. Sweden's Mattias Ekstrom led the way for the first time this season, ahead of team mates Christian Abt and Tomczyk. The pack shuffled on Saturday: Abt was fourth quickest, ahead of Laurent Aiello's stand-in Kris Nissen (sixth) and Ekstrom (seventh).

The hilly venue in Saxony appears to suit the TT-Rs just like the Nurburgring, where Aiello scored its maiden DTM victory. With Aiello on Le Mans duty this weekend, the Abt Sportsline squad will want as many of its cars as possible ahead of the Merc ranks to defend the Frenchman's third place in the points standings.

A late lap from Uwe Alzen broke up the Audi party and gave him fifth place, while team mate and Oschersleben winner Marcel Fassler was seventh quickest in his AMG Merc, ahead of the first 2000-spec CLK of the impressive Dutchman Christijan Albers.

Opel's DTM fortunes are getting better - slowly but surely. All five of its 2001 cars are in different specifications this weekend as the Ruesselsheim marque frantically attempts to catch up. Michael Bartels appears to have the most effective parts on his car as he was tenth quickest, six-tenths off the pole time, although the next Astra Coupe was the 2000 version of Hubert Haupt in 15th, who headed the squad's superstars Alain Menu, Timo Scheider, Manuel Reuter and Joachim Winkelhock.

Stay tuned to Autosport.com as qualifying begins at 13.05 local time (12.05 BST) for the next installment of the D2 AMG Mercedes vs Abt Audi battle.


Martin Tomczyk, 2001 Abt Sportsline Audi TT-R, 1m20.452s
Bernd Schneider, 2001 D2 Mercedes CLK, 1m20.494s
Peter Dumbreck, 2001 D2 Mercedes CLK, 1m20.525s
Christian Abt, 2001 Abt Sportsline Audi TT-R 1m20.620s
Uwe Alzen, 2001 Warsteiner Mercedes CLK, 1m20.728s
Kris Nissen, Abt Sportsline Audi TT-R, 1m20.879s
Mattias Ekstrom, Abt Sportsline Audi TT-R, 1m20.891s
Marcel Fassler, 2001 Warsteiner Mercedes CLK, 1m20.929s
Christijan Albers, 2000 Persson Mercedes CLK, 1m21.089s
Michael Bartels, 2001 Holzer Opel Astra Coupe, 1m21.115s