Menu happy with first Opel DTM run

The Swiss completed his runs in the worst of the weather conditions on Wednesday morning but was happy with his first taste of the ex-Uwe Alzen chassis. Menu will get an all-new, Euroteam-run 2001-spec car in time for the opening round of the series, at Hockenheim on April 22.

"The car has already really impressed me," said Menu. "Due to the weather conditions it was a difficult beginning but I know one thing for sure, these DTM cars are a real challenge to drive. I'm looking forward to this season all the more after my first run in the car."

While Menu got acclimatised to his new surroundings, development continued apace with Opel's 2001 machinery. Manuel Reuter and Joachim Winkelhock both drove the new machines on Tuesday, before Reuter sat out the following day's session due to an aerodynamic test.

"Our learning process with the new car is making constant progress," said Reuter. "That is very pleasing, but the poor weather conditions and red flag interruptions reduced testing time to only four hours in Hockenheim."

Despite that, Reuter was seven-tenths slower than the quickest man on the track, Mercedes's reigning champion Bernd Schneider. Winkelhock, meanwhile, stayed on for the second day of the test in wet conditions and was only fractionally slower than the fastest time of the day, set by Merc's Uwe Alzen.

"In the rain I was just as fast as the Mercedes, which pleased me very much," said Winkelhock. "It wasn't like that last year [in wet conditions] and the new Opel is very easy to control. My confidence into the new car grew from lap to lap."

Opel's new privateer Peter Mamerow suffered a less that fruitful first test, however. The 42-year-old engineer ran wide over the slippery kerbs on Tuesday, got on to the grass and crashed his ex-Michael Bartels machine into a tyrewall.

Despite the shunt, in which the car sustained heavy damage, Mamerow intends to be ready to run again in the next Opel test in Barcelona next week. Reuter will get his hands on his new race car there, and is likely to hand the first 2001 car, that he has tested thus far, to Timo Scheider.