Cars That Go Fast: DISAPPOINTMENT FOR AUDI AT THE NÜRBURGRING DISAPPOINTMENT FOR AUDI AT THE NÜRBURGRING ================================================================================ Elton on 10 August, 2010 08:50:00 It is barely a year ago that Audi celebrated a commanding one-two-three-four victory in the DTM race at the Nürburgring. This time, the title defenders had to settle for places four and seven in the Eifel in front of a crowd of 86,000 spectators (throughout the weekend). For the first time this season Timo Scheider was the best Audi driver. The reigning DTM Champion pushed forward from eighth to fourth place at the start. When attempting to fight for third, Scheider subsequently lost one position which he managed to recover, though, thanks to quick pit stops by Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline. Finishing the race in fourth place, the two-time DTM Champion just barely missed his first podium result of the year. For Mattias Ekström, who had secured the pole position with a commanding performance on Saturday, the race did not go according to plan. The Swede dropped to seventh place at the start and was unable to improve again afterwards. In addition, he lost time due to a problem during the first pit stop. "As much fun as my car was for me yesterday as boring it was for me today," commented the Swede. "We missed the mark on the set-up and were fighting with a dull weapon." The same applied to his team colleagues Oliver Jarvis and Martin Tomczyk, who crossed the finish line on positions eleven and 13. In addition, Tomczyk’s Audi A4 DTM was affected by two collisions in the early stage of the race. The best driver of a year-old A4 was Mike Rockenfeller (Audi Sport Team Phoenix) in ninth place. Miguel Molina (Audi Sport Rookie Team Abt) and Katherine Legge (Audi Sport Team Rosberg) occupied positions 14 and 15. Markus Winkelhock was eliminated as early as in turn one. Alexandre Prémat slipped off the track on the eighth lap while attempting to overtake Oliver Jarvis on the outside and was not noticed in the process. "On the whole, this was a very disappointing result for Audi," stated Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich. "We simply didn’t manage to adjust to the track conditions which had significantly changed after the heavy rainfalls this morning. Our rivals did a better job of this." Just 14 days from now the Audi squad will have the chance for revenge: at Zandvoort (the Netherlands), on August 22, the sixth round of the season will be on the agenda. "We’re going to work hard in order to be capable of winning again there," said Dr. Ullrich. Quotes after the race at the Nürburgring Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich (Head of Audi Motorsport) "That was a very disappointing race for us - the worst we’ve delivered this year, although we arrived here with great expectations. The start was very important but not crucial. During the course of the race we saw that none of our cars even came close to having the kind of performance we’d been expecting - particularly after ‘Eki’s’ strong showing in yesterday’s qualifying. Now, we’ve got to look ahead, do a thorough job of working on the issues and put ourselves back in a position of being capable of winning 14 days from now at Zandvoort. There are still 60 points to be awarded for victories in the championship." Timo Scheider (GW:plus/Top Service Audi A4 DTM #1), 4th place "I had a good start and was running in fourth place as early as after the first lap. Afterwards, there were some pretty hot fights here and there between Jamie (Green), Gary (Paffett) and me. Thanks to a good strategy and partly good speed I was able to stay within reach of third place up to a certain point. But then my performance started dropping. I made a mistake as well because I simply pushed too hard in order to stick to my guns. In this respect fourth place is okay for my personal trend, but it isn’t what we’d been expecting. We need to analyse why we weren’t able to show our performance on Friday today after the rain. We definitely won’t give up!" Mattias Ekström (Red Bull Audi A4 DTM #5), 7th place "That wasn’t what we’d been hoping for. My start was poor. Afterwards, I wasn’t able to downshift properly while braking into turn one. My front wheels locked and I lost more places. After that, everything actually went according to plan, but we were too slow." Mike Rockenfeller (S line Audi A4 DTM #10), 9th place "Ninth place was the maximum. Maro Engel was quicker. Performance was simply lacking and apparently that was the case almost everywhere with Audi. Compared with the others, my pace wasn’t so bad. But it’s disappointing not to score any points. The poor starting position was crucial." Oliver Jarvis (Tabac Original Audi A4 DTM #2), 11th place "The race was a disaster that I’d like to forget as quickly as possible. The start was okay. In turn one I had to run wide on the outside. Afterwards, I was struggling with the car. I lost two positions due to mistakes. And then, unfortunately, there was an incident of body contact. I’ve got to apologise to Alexandre Prémat and Team Phoenix for this. Alex, unfortunately, drove into the tire wall as a result. For the second time there’s been an incident between Alex and me on this track. It wasn’t intentional - I apologise for what happened. Afterwards, I was simply not fast enough." Martin Tomczyk (Red Bull Cola Audi A4 DTM #6), 13th place "That was nothing to write home about! In turn one I was turned around and the rear of my car was damaged. Then I was on the penultimate position and had to make up ground. I then collided with Cheng in the chicane and destroyed my front splitter. Afterwards, the car wasn’t performing at all anymore. My lap times were out in the middle of nowhere. I just finished the race without having the slightest chance." Miguel Molina (Audi Bank A4 DTM #18), 14th place "A very bad race full of mistakes. It began with a jump start for which I received a drive-through penalty. On lap one I was too cautious. I need to become more aggressive. There have got to be visible improvements in this respect." Katherine Legge (Glamour Audi A4 DTM #15), 15th place "The race was a catastrophe. I produced a jump start. My pace wasn’t so bad but some communications problems came up. I’d sometimes hear other teams and then nobody at all. I plugged and unplugged the radio. A voice was saying, ‘pit on this lap,’ but it wasn’t my team. I pitted and of course nobody was ready there. After that, the pit board was the only means of communications." Alexandre Prémat (TV Movie Audi A4 DTM #9), retirement (accident) "After a very good start my race was unfortunately short. I was already running in eighth or ninth place and thus in a position of scoring points. I attacked Oliver (Jarvis) and was driving alongside him. He slightly touched me, which caused my car to become unstable while braking. Then we were driving side by side through the short circuit. He didn’t leave me any room and I slipped into the tire wall. That’s really a shame." Markus Winkelhock (Playboy/GW:plus Audi A4 DTM #14), retirement (accident) "My start was quite okay. I saw that Katherine (Legge) in front of me had jump-started, so I knew that I’d already gained one position. Susie (Stoddart) had a poor start. I overtook her. In front of the first corner I was behind Martin (Tomczyk), who was driving relatively far on the outside. I could have passed him on the inside. But then I felt an impact. Susie Stoddart hit the side of my car full-force. The front and rear suspensions broke. My race was ruined and over." Hans-Jürgen Abt (Team Director Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline) "We’re all very disappointed. Clearly: all of us had expected much, much more. This is how difficult or mean racing can be. ‘Eki’ destroyed his race at the start. Timo (Scheider) drove a pretty good race. All the others were simply too slow. In the end, we need to continue to work on our pace and on delivering a solid performance. This will be our task for the next few weeks. We’re not giving up. We’re not even halfway through the season. Let’s cheer up! There’ll be better days again." Ernst Moser (Team Director Audi Sport Team Phoenix) "It’s a shame not to be scoring points in a home round. It was clear that it would be a difficult race from these grid positions without rapidly changing weather conditions. We tried our best. Our pace was simply not fast enough to recover positions. We went with the flow. ‘Rocky’ drove a flawless race. Alex (Prémat) suffered a case of misfortune. It’s really too bad when two brand colleagues collide, particularly in such an unfortunate way." Arno Zensen (Team Director Audi Sport Team Rosberg) "Markus (Winkelhock) was planning to stay out of all trouble. He turned into the first corner in a completely normal way and was then run over by Susie (Stoddart). That meant the end of his race. That’s a real shame. But starting from this position is simply a problem. In Katherine (Legge)’s case, after her jump start, there were communications problems during the course of the race that were of a technical nature."