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Home  Home Good speed at the Nürburgring
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Good speed at the Nürburgring |
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Monday, 28 July 2008 |
 This weekend at the Nuerburgring there were highs and lows for my team and me. From the rain in qualifying, with a happy end for me, to the unfortunate and annoying accident with Katherine Legge in the 25th lap.
The chance to score points was already taken at the start though. Still there are a lot of positives that I am now taking with me to Brands Hatch for the next race.
Our whole team had a very good qualifying. The conditions were very difficult as a lot of rain came down. I was very pleased to achieve my best DTM qualifying to date in these conditions with 8th place, just 65 thousandths behind my team-mate Ralf Schumacher in 7th. Because of the strong rain, the second quali segment was red flagged midway through the session and the last segment was not even started. The decision of the race officials to abort Q2 and Q3 was absolutely correct, as I was wheelspining all the way up to sixth gear.
The start to the race was neither particularly good nor bad. I held my position and went into turn 1 alongside Paul di Resta, who had a great start. Unfortunately, Tom Kristensen on pole position had driven a very slow green flag lap. With his wet tires he was waiting for the first showers. Due to the slow lap my engine temperature was much too high and the electronics of my C-Class switched into safety mode and my engine off, just as I started braking for turn 1. For some 20 seconds I was stood at turn 1 until I was able to restart the engine and resume the race. Together with my team we changed my strategy for the race by radio. We decided to wait with the first pit stop as long as possible in case the rain would finally come down and I could change straight to wet tires. The first 10 laps we had a very strong pace so I was able to catch up to the field again.
After the first pit stop I was directly behind Katherine Legge. I was pushing and put pressure on her, on lap 25 I managed to put myself alongside her at the exit of the NGK chicane, to pass her into the final corner. I don't wan't to judge if she tried to block me or wanted to enter the pits. But no matter what she planned, the accident should never have hapenned. I was clearly up the inside and can not disappear if she comes across the track. She made contact with the front of my car which spun her across the track and back into my path, which put us both out of the race.
Of course to start in eight and then retire with so much bad luck is very disappointing. It would have been nice to have a normal straight forward race and score our first point in DTM, especially as our speed was very encouraging this weekend. I believe that as a team we have shown a very good performance this weekend which was underlined by the point that my team mate Ralf Schumacher scored. These are all positive things that we now take to the next race at Brands Hatch.
Keep Racing
Maro
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