Without any overstatement, compared to F3 it was really a huge jump. Less so regarding the driving, the driving standards are very high in F3 too, but the amount of attention from the media and the fans was unbelievable. Just to give you an example, Thursday evening as I got back to the hotel from the track quite late I couldn’t believe that there were more than a dozen fans still waiting for my autograph.

In the Cockpit the weekend started well and I managed to set the 10th fastest time in the first free practice session. But more important were the information’s gained about my 2007 AMG Mercedes C class. We tried to make best use of them in qualifying where I qualified just 33 thousandth of a second slower than my team mate Ralf Schumacher. The level of competition in DTM is so high and all the drivers are so close that only the slightest error or unbalance in the car during qualifying can cost you many places on the starting grid.

I was fairly excited before my first DTM race start. But before I got into the car, we had a presentation lap in a Mercedes SL 63 AMG  to greet the fans around the track. It was absolutely amazing, to see the grandstands full of people cheering to me and my colleagues.

3,2,1, go! The start went well and I managed to pass my team mate Ralf, but starting on lap 3 I got some problems due to too much understeer. What should I say, at the end I was not really satisfied with the result, but I take many positives away from this weekend from which I can learn and they will help me for the next race in Oschersleben.

Keep racing!
Maro