English weeks for Audi Sport
Within the space of just eight days as many as two important races in the United Kingdom are on the agenda of the squad of Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich: the British DTM round at Brands Hatch on September 5 (starting at 1:45 p.m. CEST live on “Das Erste”) and just one week later the 1000-kilometer race at Silverstone with the Audi R15 TDI diesel race sports car.
The toughest rival at Silverstone will be Peugeot, who Audi defeated at the famous Le Mans 24 Hours in June. Brands Hatch will see a continuation of the prestige duel against Mercedes-Benz, which the Audi squad was able to decide in its favor three consecutive times, in 2007, 2008 and 2009.
With four out of six possible DTM titles since its comeback in 2004, Audi’s track record in the DTM is impressive on the whole. Accordingly, everyone at Audi Sport and in the three teams is pursuing the aim of putting Audi back on a winning track in the 2010 season.
With respect to pole positions and fastest race laps, the score between Audi and Mercedes-Benz is still level at 3 after six of the eleven scheduled races. “This demonstrates that the A4 DTM continues to deliver the required performance, particularly since the technology has been frozen compared with last year’s,” says Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich. “At the first six races there have simply been too many minor mistakes on our side which have cost us possible victories and podium places, and thus a better position in the championship as well. We need to return to a zero-defects job of the kind that enabled us to achieve our ninth exploit at Le Mans this year.”
According to the law of averages Audi would be due for winning at Brands Hatch because ever since the DTM has been visiting the demanding roller-coaster circuit on the outskirts of London Audi and Mercedes-Benz have taken turns of scoring victories there. In 2006 Mattias Ekström triumphed, in 2007 Bernd Schneider, in 2008 Timo Scheider and in 2009 Paul Di Resta.
But the last two Brands Hatch races also showed how close the battles are fought on this track which with a length of 1.929 kilometers is the shortest circuit in the DTM year: in 2008 Timo Scheider prevailed with just a 0.793-second lead over Paul Di Resta. Last year the result was the other way around, but the gap almost as narrow: Scheider was just short of 0.896 seconds to Di Resta at the finish.
Due to the short track length at Brands Hatch hundredths and thousandths of a second in qualifying will yet again make a difference of several positions on the starting grid. And no less than 98 laps must be completed in the race. This makes the strategy particularly difficult for all the teams because it is nearly impossible to return to the track without hitting traffic after pitting. Hence conflicts like those between Bruno Spengler and Mike Rockenfeller in the most recent event at Zandvoort are practically pre-programmed.
Mattias Ekström to contest his 100th DTM race
Mattias Ekström, who as the best Audi driver is ranking in fourth place of the standings, 16 points behind Bruno Spengler, will contest his 100th DTM race at Brands Hatch. The statistical results which the 32-year-old Swede has achieved in the first 99 races of his DTM career are worthy of particular mention: 16 times he started from the pole position, 14 races were won by Ekström who in 2004 and 2007 won the champion’s title as well. A total of 47 times the Audi driver finished on the podium (in 47.5 percent of all races) – which statistically translates into almost every second run. Plus, he has scored 475 points so far in his career, which equates to about 4.8 points per race.
