Race one: Alzen wins pressure game

The race had been halted after just one lap due to a multi-car shunt at the first corner (see separate corner) with Schneider leading. But at the restart, Alzen out-dragged Schneider into the first corner and hung on for dear life for the next 25 laps.

Schneider's attacks came in bursts: the DTM points-leader would harry the Opel for a lap, sit back and re-group for a couple, then attack again. The last attack came on the final lap, but Alzen covered through the final corners and beat him over the line by just two tenths.

Behind them, but never part of the lead battle, Manuel Reuter brought his Opel in third, keeping his title hopes alive a little longer.

After the shunt and red flag, only 12 cars took the rolling restart, with Christian Abt holding sixth for Audi in the opening laps. He dropped back, but Laurent Aiello was still able to giv ethe Abt team its best result of the season by finishing fifth behind Eric Helary's Opel.

More walking wounded joined in as the race wore on - all checking out their repairs and handling before race two - but the basic rule of thumb was that if you took the rolling restart, you ended up in the points -
Stefano Modena and Christian Menzel excepted, when the latter spun and took out the former.

Klaus Ludwig yo-yoed his way to sixth, while James Thompson and Abt both finished in the points for Audi and, perhaps more importantly, gave themselves excellent grid positions for race two.


(margin is to car in front)
1 Uwe Alzen, Opel, 25 laps
2 Bernd Schneider, Mercedes, +0.2s
3 Manuel Reuter, Opel, +12.6s
4 Eric Helary, Opel, +8.3s
5 Laurent Aiello, Audi, +3.6s
6 Klaus Ludwig, Mercedes, +1.7s
7 Michael Bartels, Opel, +2.6s
8 Timo Scheider, Opel, +8.2s
9 James Thompson, Audi, +10.1s
10 Christian Abt, Audi, +1.7s