Main race: Aiello lands the big one for Audi

After taking the lead from the starts, the diminutive Frenchman's Abt Audi TT-R pulled out a 2.3secs advantage by the time he made his mandatory pitstop. He was stationery for 9secs, a full 2secs longer than Schneider's Mercedes CLK, which stopped a lap later when placed third.

Schneider came out of the pits right behind the Audi, and used his slightly newer tyres to exert all the pressure he could. But Aiello repelled his advances and looked to be pulling away again, until they caught Michael Bartels in his Opel Astra.

With precious little to shout about thus far in the DTM, Bartels wasn't going to let Opel's moment of glory slip, as his strategy to pit as late as possible had artificially elevated him to the head of the field.

"I wasn't too worried about keeping Bernd behind until we caught Bartels," said Aiello. "My car was quicker than Bernd in some places, and his was quicker than mine in others. It was really difficult to overtake the Opel, especially on the straight."

Lap after lap, Aiello tried to pass without risking his position to Schneider, who again made sure Laurent knew exactly who was behind him. Despite drawing alongside on the start/finish line on lap 16, Bartels' extra grunt kept him ahead into the first corner and he stayed in front until finally making his pit stop on lap 17.

"I was glad to see him finally pull over," admitted Laurent.

With that hazard out of the way, Aiello could again try and pull away unhindered. In his efforts to keep the pressure up, Schneider made a big mistake by clipping the kerb too hard at the Castrol S, which sent his Mercedes into a tank slapper and lost him 2secs on the fleeing Aiello plus all hopes of victory.

Attention now turned to a fantastic battle for third between Thomas Jager (Persson Mercedes), Martin Tomczyk (Abt Audi) and the Warsteiner AMG Mercs of Marcel Fassler and Uwe Alzen. Jager bounced across the kerbs at the Veedol chicane with three laps to go, and caused those behind to take evasive action.

The upshot was that Tomczyk, Fassler and Alzen entered the Castrol S three abreast and, amazingly, they came out in one piece and in that order. Alzen had been forced to whack the kerbs, however, and paid the price when his front-left suspension collapsed at high speed on the final lap, putting him out of the race.

That promoted Pedro Lamy (Rosberg Mercedes) to sixth, ahead of early pitter Patrick Huisman (Manthey Mercedes) and Peter Dumbreck (D2 Mercedes).

The latter had a torrid race, having been shoved aside at the first corner by a wayward Tomczyk in a battle for second place. The Scot pitted early, but spun at the Bit Kurve and lost a handful of places, despite making a quick recovery. Fellow Brit Darren Turner finished out of the points after his front splitter became detached.


Laurent Aiello, 2001 Abt Sportsline Audi TT-R, 22 laps
Bernd Schneider, 2001 D2 Mercedes CLK, +1.5s
Thomas Jager, 2000 Persson Mercedes CLK, +4.7s
Martin Tomczyk, 2001 Abt Sportsline Audi TT-R, +5.2s
Marcel Fassler, 2001 Warsteiner Mercedes CLK, +5.6s
Pedro Lamy, 2000 Rosberg Mercedes CLK, +15.2s
Patrick Huisman, 2001 Eschmann-Manthey Mercedes CLK, +18.3s
Peter Dumbreck, 2001 D2 Mercedes CLK, +18.7s
Mattias Ekstrom, Abt Sportsline Audi TT-R, +20.4s
Timo Scheider, 2001 Holzer Opel Astra Coupe, +22.1s