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Kristensen ends DTM victory drought

Tom Kristensen took his first win since 2006 in the DTM season opener at Hockenheim, after dominant leader Mattias Ekstrom suffered a puncture on the penultimate lap

Ekstrom had been untouchable throughout the race, and held a lead of almost 10 seconds in the closing stages. But he was forced to pit at the start of the final lap when his left rear tyre fell apart.

That left his Audi team-mate Kristensen, who had spent the whole race with reigning champion Timo Scheider all over the back of him, in place to take the win just two days after announcing that he will retire from the series at the end of the year.

Behind them, Oliver Jarvis was rewarded for a strong drive in his 2008 Audi with a podium finish, after shadowing the three Abt Sportsline cars for the whole race.

Markus Winkelhock made sure Audi locked out the top four places, while Paul di Resta was the top Mercedes in fifth place - more than 20 seconds behind the winner.

The year-old Mercedes of Maro Engel and Jamie Green sandwiched the delayed Ekstrom in sixth and eighth, ahead of Ralf Schumacher, who had an incident-packed race.

The German thought his day was done on the opening lap, when Gary Paffett's bonnet flew up in the air and smashed the German's windscreen. The roof caved in, but Mercedes was able to get him back out on the lead lap thanks to a safety car.

Paffett retired just a couple of corners later, due to damage he sustained running into the back of Alexandre Premat at the hairpin.

Bruno Spengler was another Mercedes driver to have a tough day. After starting at the back, the Canadian had got ahead of di Resta before he was forced to park with an apparent suspension problem.

Pos  Driver              Car       Time
 1.  Tom Kristensen      Audi      1h05m35.819s
 2.  Timo Scheider       Audi       +    0.353s
 3.  Oliver Jarvis       Audi       +    4.450s
 4.  Markus Winkelhock   Audi       +   10.840s
 5.  Paul di Resta       Mercedes   +   21.832s
 6.  Maro Engel          Mercedes   +   24.977s
 7.  Mattias Ekstrom     Audi       +   36.730s
 8.  Jamie Green         Mercedes   +   46.347s
 9.  Ralf Schumacher     Mercedes   +   55.699s
10.  Mathias Lauda       Mercedes   + 1m00.978s
11.  Tomas Kostka        Audi       + 1m15.339s
12.  Katherine Legge     Audi       + 1m20.882s
13.  Johannes Seidlitz   Audi       + 1m23.774s
14.  Christian Bakkerud  Audi       + 1m35.921s

Retirements:

     Martin Tomczyk      Audi      24
     Bruno Spengler      Mercedes  24
     Susie Stoddart      Mercedes  24
     Mike Rockenfeller   Audi      1
     Alexandre Premat    Audi      1
     Gary Paffett        Mercedes  0

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