Mercedes and Audi put the miles on in Italy

Mercedes had three 2001-specification CLKs present at Vallelunga, one for each of its three works AMG teams. Bernd Schneider shared the D2 car with Peter Dumbreck, Uwe Alzen partnered Marcel Fassler in the black Warsteiner machine, while DTM newboys Patrick Huisman and Bernd Maylander drove a 2001-spec car for the first time for the new Eschmann-Manthey equipe.

"It was case of me getting to grips with the car," said Huisman. "The 2001 car is slightly different to the 2000 version I had driven before, and I think it suits my driving style a bit better. I felt my times were very competitive."

Established Merc star Dumbreck said: "It was good to get back behind the wheel again. I did a lot of laps in the new car, which isn't massively different from last year. We used the new Dunlop tyres, which were worth about eight-tenths and made the front-end more positive. To be honest, I always prefer to race than testing, but I learnt a lot this week and really enjoyed it."

Fassler crashed one of the new cars into a tyrewall on Tuesday, but damage was limited and he was soon back on track later that day. The Mercedes drivers now journey to Spain this weekend to attend a fitness training camp at Majorca.

Abt Sportsline has yet to complete its first 2001 Audi, and so used one of last year's TT-Rs fitted with aerodynamic tweaks. New signings Mattias Ekstrom and Martin Tomczyk also got behind the wheel of last year's machinery as they continued to acclimatise to the DTM.

On the subject of its new aero package, driver Christian Abt said: "The new rear wing was very good straight away. It was exactly what we had expected of it."

Opel debuted its 2001 car in Spain last week, leaving Abt as the only team yet to test its new machinery.