Scheider leads Audi top four sweep

The reigning champion, who has won at the German track for the past two years, led the way ahead of his fellow 2009-spec Audi team-mates Mattias Ekstrom and Oliver Jarvis.

Series rookie Miguel Molina was next up in his 2008-spec Audi, which is also run by the Abt Sportsline team. However, the Spaniard was 0.4 seconds adrift of the pace in what is usually a very tightly bunched field.

Things were closer between the cars in the bottom half of the top 10. Brands Hatch winner Paul di Resta was fifth for Mercedes, while the four cars behind him were all within four hundredths of a second of his lap.

Almost all of the drivers set their best times in the first hour of the 90-minute session, before temperatures began to tumble. There was little to choose between di Resta and his title rivals (and team-mates) Bruno Spengler and Gary Paffett during that time.

However, the trio were broken up in the timesheets by Audi's Mike Rockenfeller, who improved late in the session to edge Paffett back to eighth place.

Maro Engel was the top driver of a 2008-spec Mercedes in ninth, while Markus Winkelhock completed the top 10.

Pos  Driver             Car       Time       Gap
 1.  Timo Scheider      Audi      1m23.071s
 2.  Mattias Ekstrom    Audi      1m23.229s  + 0.158s
 3.  Oliver Jarvis      Audi      1m23.359s  + 0.288s
 4.  Miguel Molina      Audi      1m23.511s  + 0.440s
 5.  Paul di Resta      Mercedes  1m23.731s  + 0.660s
 6.  Bruno Spengler     Mercedes  1m23.758s  + 0.687s
 7.  Mike Rockenfeller  Audi      1m23.766s  + 0.695s
 8.  Gary Paffett       Mercedes  1m23.770s  + 0.699s
 9.  Maro Engel         Mercedes  1m23.770s  + 0.699s
10.  Markus Winkelhock  Audi      1m23.876s  + 0.805s
11.  Ralf Schumacher    Mercedes  1m24.003s  + 0.932s
12.  Martin Tomczyk     Audi      1m24.004s  + 0.933s
13.  Alexandre Premat   Audi      1m24.039s  + 0.968s
14.  Jamie Green        Mercedes  1m24.241s  + 1.170s
15.  David Coulthard    Mercedes  1m24.346s  + 1.275s
16.  Susie Stoddart     Mercedes  1m24.665s  + 1.594s
17.  Katherine Legge    Audi      1m25.551s  + 2.480s
18.  Cong Fu Cheng      Mercedes  1m25.788s  + 2.717s