I felt we had a good chance to reach the second segment of qualifying. Unfortunately my lap wasn’t 100% perfect, so I missed the cut by only 0.048 seconds to the benefit of my team mate Ralf Schumacher. It was really close. 15th on the starting grid was the final result. Naturally I was disappointed to be beaten by such a small margin. But, one year ago I had never expected to be less than one tenth behind Garry Paffet and Ralf Schumacher in a DTM qualifying and to be disappointed about that.

Nine laps before the end of the race,  Tom Kristensen went off the track and came back spinning collecting me. I was almost through, but he came back on track and hit me at the rear. At the first moment it was really frustrating, especially because the race went really well until then, i was lying in 10th position 2 places ahead of my team mate and catching Ekstrom and Premat in 8th and 9th.  Unfortunately this is a part of motorsport, Tom immediately apologised to me - and with that I moved on.

Most importantantly, I could show that I was able to run the pace of the more experienced guys and we made a big step forward since Hockenheim. I have to compliment my boys from the Mücke Motorsport team; they worked really hard and did a fantastic job.  The car, strategy and pit stops worked really well. I was also pleased to hear that our motorsport director Norbert Haug praised my race.  Generally I must say I feel a big coherence and strong will from everyone in the Mercedes motorsport family to come back and win. I don`t believe it will be long before we will see a “star driver” take the top step of the podium again.

We now have a short break of two weeks before we head to Mugello for the next race. Mugello is one of my favourite tracks, i’m looking forward to the fans and especially to Italy. If we can pick up where we stopped in  Oschersleben, a good result is on the cards.

Keep racing!
Maro