Race 1: Alzen’s ‘smash and grab’ victory

Reuter led an Opel 1-2-3-4 away from pole, heading Alzen, Eric Helary, Joachim Winkelhock. The top Mercedes was, inevitably, Bernd Schneider, but he failed in his attempt to fend off Opel's Michael Bartels at the first chicane and allowed Christian Menzel to attack too. Schneider and Menzel made contact forcing the latter's Astra to spin and delaying Laurent Aiello in the best placed Audi TT.

Alzen used the slipstream around the high-speed Grand Prix course to close up on Reuter, and was right on his tail by lap five. He claimed Reuter braked early, catching him by surprise, which caused him to clip the rear of his team-mate under braking for the Jim Clark Chicane, resulting in severe bodywork damage to both cars. Reuter was forced to pit for repairs, but Alzen continued in his battle-scarred machine to score his second victory of the season.

Opel held the top six positions at the conclusion of the opening lap, but Schneider likes a challenge and carved his way through their ranks to take second place, 6.7s behind Alzen. Winkelhock got the better of Bartels in an entertaining battle over the final place on the podium, which he achieved thanks to a brave lunge at the Ayrton Senna Chicane on the final lap.

Marcel Fassler (AMG Mercedes) took fourth after a clash with the similar car of Marcel Tiemann left the latter in the Stadium gravel trap with three laps to go.

Peter Dumbreck (Mercedes) dropped to 14th at the start but battled his way through to seventh. Darren Turner ran as high as eighth before a gravelly off dropped him to tenth, and James Thompson was the first Audi home in 13th, despite acting as a launch pad for Menzel at the Sachs Kurve, who ended his race firmly embedded in the tyrewall.


1 Uwe Alzen, Opel, 32m51.134s
2 Bernd Schneider, Mercedes, +6.7s
3 Joachim Winkelhock, Opel, +8.5s
4 Michael Bartels, Opel, +8.7s
5 Marcel Fassler, Mercedes, +12.6s
6 Eric Helary, Opel, +14.2s
7 Peter Dumbreck, Mercedes, +14.6s
8 Pedro Lamy, Mercedes, +15.4s
9 Stefano Modena, Opel, +16.8s
10 Darren Turner, Mercedes, +25.7s