Qualifying: Alzen holds his nerve

With the session starting on a soaking track, but no more rain falling through the session, it boiled down to who had the nerve to wait the longest to bolt on the slicks and set his time. Audi shot its bolt when all four of its drivers surprisingly refused to switch from wets, so the game of 'pass the pole' in the dying minutes boiled down to a wholly Mercedes/Opel affair.

In the space of four action-packed minutes, the pole changed hands nine times, with Mattias Ekstrom's Audi being knocked off the top slot by Bernd Schneider's Mercedes. In turn, he was demoted by Alzen, Peter Dumbreck, Schneider again, Alzen again, then Dumbreck, then Schneider before - pause for breath - Alzen took it again with the chequered flag very firmly fluttering. For the session as a whole, nine different drivers held a top slot that changed hands a staggering 15 times.

"When I saw the time on my display and knew I could still do another lap, I was confident I could still improve," said Alzen. "I did and it was good enough, but it was still a surprise.

"I had one big moment on my flying lap, but apart from that, the car felt sensational to drive. (AMG race technical chief) Gerhard Ungar called it just right when we made changes to my car between runs."

In the final round-up, the top six was Alzen, followed by Marcel Fassler's Merc, Alain Menu's Opel Astra in third, Schneider, Tomas Jager's CLK and Michael Bartels' Astra. That made it four Mercs and two very welcome Opels in the top half-dozen.

Heck, with Opel in the top three and reigning BTCC champ Menu being grilled in a press conference, it almost felt like 2000 all over again...

"I'm very pleased," said the Swiss. "We tested a lot the last few weeks and it's just given us a chance to learn about the car. We're working as a team, and that's great. Now we need to do as well, or even better in the race."

Fassler, the man who pipped Menu to second, confirmed that the time to go out for your final flying laps was totally crucial.

"It was kind of a gamble," he said, "but it was a gamble based on keeping in touch with what's happening from one minute to the next. I was always talking to the pits, telling them how the track was, and we made our decision just about right."

Dumbreck and Opel's Manuel Reuter finished seventh and eighth, with the best of the Audis that of Mattias Ekstrom in ninth. Compounding the evidence that the TT-Rs had bungled by not choosing to go onto slicks, Christian Abt and Laurent Aiello finished the session 10th and 11th, with Martin Tomczyk 13th.

But if Ekstrom was frustrated by how things had panned out, he was doing his best to hide it, saying: "I'd been top a couple of times with wets, but when the time came to think about changing to cut slicks, it was such a fine window that it was very difficult to decide. Sometimes you're lucky, sometimes you're not."

Oh, and just to demonstrate how critical timing was, Darren Turner finished his qualifying session way down in 16th - despite being third overall with five minutes to go.


Uwe Alzen, 2001 Warsteiner Mercedes CLK, 1m51.445s
Marcel Fassler, 2001 Warsteiner Mercedes CLK, 1m52.161s
Alain Menu, 2001 Euroteam Opel Astra Coupe, 1m52.236s
Bernd Schneider, 2001 D2 Mercedes CLK, 1m52.495s
Tomas Jager, 2000 Persson Mercedes CLK, 1m53.017s
Michael Bartels, 2001 Holzer Opel Astra Coupe, 1m53.964s
Peter Dumbreck, 2001 D2 Mercedes CLK, 1m54.540s
Manuel Reuter, 2001 Phoenix Opel Astra Coupe, 1m56.409s
Mattias Ekstrom, 2001 Abt Sportsline Audi TT-R, 1m57.171s
Christian Abt, 2001 Abt Sportsline Audi TT-R 1m57.433s
Laurent Aiello, 2001 Abt Sportsline Audi TT-R, 1m57.671s
David Saelens, 2000 Rosberg Mercedes CLK, 1m58.343s
Martin Tomczyk, 2001 Abt Sportsline Audi TT-R, 1m58.366s
Timo Scheider, 2001 Holzer Opel Astra Coupe, 1m58.494s
Yves Olivier, 2000 Phoenix Opel Astra Coupe, 1m58.687s
Darren Turner, 2000 Rosberg Mercedes CLK, 1m58.826s
Joachim Winkelhock, 2001 Holzer Opel Astra Coupe, 1m59.028s
Hubert Haupt, 2000 Euroteam Opel Astra Coupe, 1m59.228s
Patrick Huisman, 2001 Eschmann-Manthey Mercedes CLK, 1m59.454s
Bernd Maylander, 2001 Eschmann-Manthey Mercedes CLK, 1m59.738s
Christijan Albers, 2000 Persson Mercedes CLK, 1m59.812s

Peter Mamerow, 2000 Mamerow Opel Astra Coupe, 2m03.013s (will be allowed to start)