Audi with strong performance at Brands Hatch

The Audi A4 DTM cars from all three model years, competing with different weights on account of the rules (the older the car, the lighter its weight), were represented in the top group on Friday: In the morning session, which started with a 25-minute delay due to bad weather, the Brit Adam Carroll in second place was the best Audi driver. Timo Scheider followed with merely five thousandths of a second behind him in position three. In the afternoon, Martin Tomczyk set the best time ahead of Lucas Luhr.

Martin Tomczyk, Alexandre Prémat and Markus Winkelhock increased the workload of their mechanics after off-road excursions. However, all three cars suffered only minor damage and were out again shortly after the incidents.

The qualifying session at Brands Hatch is scheduled to start at 12:28, local time (1:28 p.m. in Germany). ARD will broadcast live on “das Erste” from England.

Quotes after Friday’s tests

Dr Wolfgang Ullrich (Head of Audi Motorsport): “The morning session was a bit difficult because grip degraded in the second half of the practice session. That’s why it wasn’t easy to make an optimal evaluation of the data. In the afternoon, track conditions were clearer. We reeled off different programmes with all of our cars. Our long runs were looking good as well so that we’ve now got a good base for tomorrow.”

Adam Carroll (Audi A4 DTM #20)
2nd place / 5th place, 43.250s
“Friday was positive. In the first test I was the second-fastest driver. The car was good straight away. In the second session, in fifth place, I was still among the front runners, even though I didn’t drive very much. We’re assuming that an electronic problem caused us to lose 30 to 40 minutes, but we were able to resolve it. Hopefully, I’ll make it into the third qualifying section and score my first points on Sunday.”

Timo Scheider (Gebrauchtwagen:plus/Top Service Audi A4 DTM #8)
3rd place / 7th place, 43.255s
“Basically, Friday was very good for us. We’d been expecting our gap to be a bit bigger due to our higher weight. My long run in the afternoon was outstanding. I’m confident about tomorrow.”

Alexandre Prémat (Audi Bank Audi A4 DTM #17)
4th place / 15th place, 43.272s
“In the morning, we were heading in the right direction. The track changed in the afternoon – unfortunately, to our disadvantage. Then I made a mistake that upsets me. That’s why we’ve still got a lot of work to do on Saturday if we want to score another top result.”

Martin Tomczyk (Red Bull Audi A4 DTM #4)
16th place / 1st place, 43.319s
“The circuit here at Brands Hatch kept changing during the practice sessions today. In terms of the set-up, a fast lap time and the long run I’m very satisfied and expect a pretty good result for tomorrow’s qualifying.”

Lucas Luhr (Philips Audi A4 DTM #12)
7th place / 2nd place, 43.367s
“A good result although, actually, I’m not satisfied with the car. It’s not handling yet the way I want it to. Hopefully, we’ll be able to improve some more tomorrow. That’s the weird thing about the DTM: You’re not satisfied although you’re in second place, and sometimes you think that you weren’t really all that bad, but you’re on position 16. That’s something I’ve still got to get used to. But on the whole it was a good day for us.”

Mattias Ekström (Red Bull Audi A4 DTM #3)
10th place / 14th place, 43.407s
“It’s great being back on this unique circuit at Brands Hatch again. I’ve still got extremely fond memories of my victory last year. We gathered a lot of information today and now we’re continuing to work on applying the lessons we learned in tomorrow’s qualifying as best we can.”

Christian Abt (Playboy Audi A4 DTM #16)
17th place / 9th place, 43.583s
“We’re well sorted because we tried out everything on our agenda. We gained some good insights and are well set for longer distances. On Saturday morning, we’re going to fully concentrate on qualifying. I’m pretty happy with ninth place.”

Mike Rockenfeller (S line Audi A4 DTM #11)
14th place / 13th place, 43.619s
“I’m not quite satisfied yet. We still need to come up with something. Lucas proved that it’s possible to take a 2006-spec car all the way to the front, so I should be able to do that as well.”

Vanina Ickx (Audi A4 DTM #21)
15th place / 20th place, 43.640s
“The day started very well as the track was damp in the beginning. I felt very comfortable in these conditions. Unfortunately, the track got drier later
on. Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun today. In the afternoon, we worked on the race set-up of my Audi, while on Saturday, we’re going to concentrate on qualifying.”

Markus Winkelhock (Siemens Audi A4 DTM #7)
20th place / 18th place, 43.945s
“This is my first time at Brands Hatch, and I have to say that this circuit is really cool. Of course I had to familiarise myself a little with the track and went a bit over the limit this morning; and brushed the tyre wall. But I’m not a hundred percent satisfied with myself yet and my A4, so we’re going to continue working hard tomorrow.”

Hans-Jürgen Abt (Team Director Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline): “We completed our whole programme today and did our homework. Our main focus today was on our long runs and various set-ups. Everything went superbly, and we’re optimistic for the weekend.”

Ernst Moser (Team Director Audi Sport Team Phoenix): “The first test went very well. Alex Prémat was at the front of the field. Unfortunately, he had an accident at the beginning of the long run in the second test. As we weren’t able to test the car in terms of endurance, it’s hard to say where we stand. Christian Abt, on the other hand, wasn’t satisfied with balance this morning. He managed coming closer and closer and was driving very consistent times in the afternoon.”

Arno Zensen (Team Director Audi Sport Team Rosberg): “With Lucas’ second place I’m quite happy, although he’s not completely satisfied with his car. We will check everything to get the best out of the car. ‘Rocky‘ keeps struggling with understeer. We should be able to get a handle on that.”