Friday free practice: Merc to the power of 10
There are 10 Mercedes CLKs entered in the 2001 DTM - and rather ominously, all 10 finished ahead of the opposition from Opel and Audi in Friday's pair of free practice sessions for Sunday's season-opener on the Hockenheim short circuit
Reigning champion Bernd Schneider topped both 90-minute sessions, followed in each case by Uwe Alzen, who switched to the Three-Pointed Star from Opel over the winter, but has been quick to assert himself.
D2 AMG driver Schneider set a lap time of 1m00.180s in the morning, then bettered that to 1m00.053s in the afternoon. Alzen's best time, set in the afternoon, was 1m00.184s. Extrapolating those times, it's expected that several drivers should dip below the 'magic' one-minute barrier tomorrow (Saturday).
Third place went to DTM rookie Patrick Huisman in the morning, with Schneider's team mate Peter Dumbreck taking over the spot in the afternoon after finishing fourth in the morning.
Mercedes fields six 2001-spec cars, and all six filled the top six spots. Tomas Jager was best of the 2000 posse, setting a time 0.627s shy of Schneider
Ironically, the fastest Opel was newcomer Yves Olivier's 2000-spec car, with a lap of 1m01.139s for the Belgian former Formula 3000 driver. Timo Scheider was the best of the 2001-spec Astra drivers, setting a best lap of 1m01.572s.
But if Opel has some serious thinking to do if it is to match the Merc times, the privateer Abt Audi squad must be semi-ecstatic after mixing it with the cream of the Russelsheim machines.
The team had worked round the clock to finish four of its longer wheelbase 2001-spec TT-Rs and was rewarded with 12th and 13th times for Christian Abt and Laurent Aiello, with Abt's time just 0.009s slower than Olivier's benchmark.
The teams get a further two periods of free practice tomorrow (Saturday), before a single hour of timed qualifying in the afternoon.
Bernd Schneider, Mercedes, 1m00.053s
Uwe Alzen, Mercedes, 1m00.184s
Peter Dumbreck, Mercedes, 1m00.282s
Marcel Fasssler, Mercedes, 1m00.302s
Bernd Maylander, Mercedes, 1m00.489s
Patrick Huisman, Mercedes, 1m00.539s
Tomas Jager, Mercedes - 2000, 1m00.680s
Pedro Lamy, Mercedes - 2000, 1m01.120s
Christijan Albers, Mercedes - 2000, 1m01.208s
Darren Turner, Mercedes - 2000, 1m01.219s
Yves Olivier, Opel - 2000, 1m01.329s
Christian Abt, Audi, 1m01.338s
Laurent Aiello, Audi, 1m01.389s
Timo Scheider, Opel, 1m01.572s
Jo Winkelhock, Opel, 1m01.693s
Manuel Reuter, Opel, 1m01.830s
Alain Menu, Opel, 1m01.840s
Mattias Ekstrom, Audi, 1m01.952s
Martin Tomczyk, Audi, 1m02.108s
Michael Bartels, Opel, 1m02.111s
Hubert Haupt, Opel - 2000, 1m02.297s
Peter Mamerow, Opel - 2000, 1m03.729s
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