Oschersleben, free practice 2: Aiello second!
Laurent Aiello provided one of the shocks of the season when he put his Abt-built Audi TT-R second quickest, behind Mercedes ace Bernd Schneider, in the second free practice session at Oschersleben
Aiello's achievement is probably akin to a Minardi qualifying on the front row for the US GP - it just shouldn't happen... Prior to Oschersleben, Audi's domain has been the rear two rows of the grid. The trick now is for Aiello to repeat the feat in this afternoon's single timed session (1400, 1300BST).
After sitting out the first free hour, Schneider (who spun twice, but without damage) and Mercedes took the opportunity to fine-tune qualifying set-ups and scrub in sets of Dunlop control tyres. Three other Mercs finished in the top 10, with Pedro lamy the second best in sixth spot.
Opel's top runner was Uwe Alzen , who set the third quickest time, just 0.210s behind Schneider. It was the first time in the re-born DTM that all three marques had appeared in the top three on a time sheet, and with 16 cars covered by less than a second, perhaps Oschersleben will supply the antidote to the Mercedes parades seen at the Sachsenring and Nurburgring?
Best of the British runners was Peter Dumbreck in eighth, with Darren Turner a lowly 17th and just one spot ahead of James Thompson's Audi.
1 Bernd Schneider, Mercedes, 1m26.332s
2 Laurent Aiello, Audi, 1m26.560s
3 Uwe Alzen, Opel, 1m26.542s
4 Eric Helary, Opel, 1m26.628s
5 Stefano Modena, Opel, 1m26.698s
6 Pedro Lamy, Mercedes, 1m26.714s
7 Timo Scheider, Opel, 1m26.894s
8 Peter Dumbreck, Mercedes, 1m26.985s
9 Christian Menzel, Opel, 1m27.001s
10 Marcel Tiemann, Mercedes, 1m 27.003s
Selected others
17 Darren Turner, Mercedes, 1m27.376s
18 James Thompson, Audi, 1m27.881s
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