Friday practice: Schneider, Scheider

The Team Holzer-run youngster finished the pair of 90-minute sessions 0.331s slower than the 1m29.029s benchmark set by points leader Schneider and actually headed the times for part of the session. However, in a top 10 dominated by Mercedes CLKs and Abt Audi TT-Rs, the next quickest Astra, that of reigning BTCC champion Alain Menu, was down in the 10th spot.

"We don't have a reason to be overjoyed yet," said a pragmatic Scheider. "Maybe it's paid off that we went testing here before the start of the season. But I think we can also be among the frontrunners in qualifying, because my car is good on this track, and I'm confident for the remainder of the season - especially because Opel seems to race better than it qualifies."

The Mercs of Bernd Maylander, Uwe Alzen and Peter Dumbreck completed the top five, with Audi duo Mattias Ekstrom and Laurent Aiello next up. Patrick Huisman's CLK and the TT-R of Christian Abt held the slots ahead of Menu.

Aiello noted: "The A1-Ring is entirely new for us and it is quite a complicated track. For instance, there are some braking points that are very difficult to work out, so you have to find exactly the right place before being able to push."

The teams have a final hour of free practice on Saturday morning, followed by a single 45-minute qualifying session at 12:05BST (13:05 local time).