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Mercedes: Audi won't dominate

Mercedes believe that they are in much better shape this weekend at Zandvoort than they were two weeks ago at Mugello

Despite Mika Hakkinen eventually winning the race in Italy from 15th on the grid, the entire Mercedes team admitted that Audi had the upper hand last time out, as demonstrated by their performance in qualifying, where A4s filled the top five spots on the grid.

Audi are the favourites for this weekend's race at Zandvoort, as the Dutch circuit features similar types of corners to Mugello. But while Audi have looked stronger in practice, Mercedes believe that they have made progress in the last two weeks.

"We are feeling so much more confident and comfortable with the car," said Mika Hakkinen. "Overall we have a much stronger package here.

"The team have done a lot of work and research since Mugello to understand what went wrong, and the way the car feels, we can be very optimistic."

Hakkinen spent a long time running behind Tom Kristensen's Audi in Friday's second practice session, and the Finn feels that it was useful to follow the Dane rather than try to pass him.

"I was following Tom for quite a while," he added. "It was a good exercise, I saw their strengths and their weaknesses.

"I wouldn't put a bet on a Mercedes being on pole in the dry, but we should be able to make a better qualifying result than at Mugello."

Jamie Green, who took pole at Zandvoort last year, added that he felt that Mercedes were in better shape than they were in Italy.

"We're much stronger here," he told autosport.com. "It should be a lot closer between us, but you can't tell too much from practice."

Timo Scheider, who came so close to winning at the same circuit for Opel in 2003, has set the pace so far this weekend, and the German believes that there is more to come from Audi.

"Our fast laps are pretty decent already, so it's been good so far for us," he said. "But we do want to step things up a bit."

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