Spengler quickest in Mugello practice
Bruno Spengler topped a session at a DTM weekend for the first time this season on Saturday morning at Mugello
The Mercedes driver, who has finished runner-up in the standings for the past two seasons, edged Friday pacesetter Mattias Ekstrom by two tenths of a second with a lap set during the middle of the session.
Saturday practice usually features a mad rush at the end as teams fine tune their qualifying setups, but despite 18 of the 19 cars coming into the pits together and doing one final run with five minutes to go, very few drivers were able to improve their times.
The times throughout the session were remarkably faster than those set yesterday though, with 16 drivers going faster than Ekstrom was able to on Friday.
Championship leader Timo Scheider was third quickest for Audi, while Jamie Green, who had a low-speed spin at the first corner, was fourth.
Tom Kristensen completed the top five, while Mike Rockenfeller was the top driver in a one-year-old car. Markus Winkelhock and Oliver Jarvis were next up, also driving the 2007-spec Audi that had a clear speed advantage at the Italian track last year.
Pos Driver Team Time Gap 1. Bruno Spengler Mercedes 1:42.425 2. Mattias Ekstrom Audi 1:42.691 +0.266 3. Timo Scheider Audi 1:42.899 +0.474 4. Jamie Green Mercedes 1:42.976 +0.551 5. Tom Kristensen Audi 1:43.112 +0.687 6. Mike Rockenfeller Audi 1:43.267 +0.842 7. Markus Winkelhock Audi 1:43.331 +0.906 8. Oliver Jarvis Audi 1:43.356 +0.931 9. Bernd Schneider Mercedes 1:43.359 +0.934 10. Paul di Resta Mercedes 1:43.445 +1.020 11. Martin Tomczyk Audi 1:43.602 +1.177 12. Alexandre Premat Audi 1:44.086 +1.661 13. Gary Paffett Mercedes 1:44.212 +1.787 14. Ralf Schumacher Mercedes 1:44.289 +1.864 15. Christijan Albers Audi 1:44.349 +1.924 16. Maro Engel Mercedes 1:44.596 +2.171 17. Katherine Legge Audi 1:44.959 +2.534 18. Mathias Lauda Mercedes 1:45.018 +2.593 19. Susie Stoddart Mercedes 1:45.438 +3.013
Ekstrom sets the early pace in Italy
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