Sprint race: Fassler wins the parade

But with only one place change among the top 10 in a rather uninspiring nine-lap thrash, the grid for the big points pitstop race remains largely as Saturday qualifying. Laurent Aiello's Audi finished second, ahead of the Mercedes trio of Bernd Schneider, Uwe Alzen and Peter Dumbreck, with Mattias Ekstrom's Audi completing the top six.

With little to gain, but much to lose in the sprint, perhaps it's best to give the benefit of the doubt and say the field was keeping its powder dry for the 28-lap feature race? Martin Tomczyk gained a place as he put his Audi into 10th at the expense of Christijan Albers' Persson Merc, while Alain Menu climbed from 20th on the grid to 16th, but it was far from a classic.

Jo Winkelhock's Opel was spun out by DTM returnee Marcel Tiemann and plucky Opel privateer Peter Mamerow got on the wrong side of DTM debutant David Saelens, but that was basically it.

Menu aside, Opel had little else to cheer about, with its best qualifier Manuel Reuter turning 12th on the grid into 13th as the Astra V8 Coupes continued to struggle, despite having the warmest track conditions of the season so far to put heat into their Dunlop control tyres.




Marcel Fassler, 2001 Warsteiner Mercedes CLK, 12m47.4s
Laurent Aiello, 2001 Abt Sportsline Audi TT-R, +1.1s
Bernd Schneider, 2001 D2 Mercedes CLK, +1.8s
Uwe Alzen, , 2001 Warsteiner Mercedes CLK, +4.0s
Peter Dumbreck, 2001 D2 Mercedes CLK, +5.3s
Mattias Ekstrom, 2001 Abt Sportsline Audi TT-R, +7.4s
Patrick Huisman, 2001 Eschmann-Manthey Mercedes CLK, +11.3s
Christian Abt, 2001 Abt Sportsline Audi TT-R +11.7s
Tomas Jager, 2000 Persson Mercedes CLK, +14.4s
Martin Tomczyk, 2001 Abt Sportsline Audi TT-R, +14.7s


Click here for the full starting line-up of the main race.