Lausitz, 25 May, 2003

During the fourth round of the 2003 DTM an Abt-Audi driver again stood on the winners rostrum: At the EuroSpeedway, in the scorching heat and in front of 62,000 spectators Mattias Ekstroem fought his way to third position. Defending champion Laurent Aiello started in the Abt-Audi TT-R of his team colleague Martin Tomczyk after an accident in practice and collected a point by finishing eighth. With ninth position, Christian Abt provided the best result for a year-old car in the 2003 DTM.

The race at a glance

Weather
sunny, hot, 34 degrees Celsius

Spectators
62,000
#14 Tomczyk and
#15 Terting not on the grid after handing over their cars to
#1 Aiello and #2 Abt

Start
#5 Ekstroem drops from second to fourth position
#1 Aiello jumps to sixth position
#2 Abt ninth
#6 Wendlinger eleventh

Lap 4
#5 Ekstroem benefits from a mistake under braking by #9 Fässler, and improves to third position

Lap 7
#5 Ekstroem and #2 Abt make first compulsory pit stop

Lap 8
#1 Aiello stalls his engine during the first pit stop

Lap 11
After the first compulsory pit stops:
3rd Ekstroem; 7th Aiello; 10th Abt; 13th Wendlinger

Lap 17
#1 Aiello now sixth after spin by #8 Menu

Lap 19
#5 Ekstroem (3rd) completes his second pit stop

Lap 20
#1 Aiello stalls engine again during second pit stop, drops behind #4 Albers

Lap 22
After the second round of compulsory pit stops:
3rd Ekstroem; 8th Aiello; 10th Abt; 12th Wendlinger

Lap 30
Spin by #6 Wendlinger, drops back to 13th

Finish
3rd Ekstroem; 8th Aiello; 9th Abt; 13th Wendlinger

1 Bernd Schneider

2 Peter Dumbreck

3 Mattias Ekstroem

4 Timo Scheider

5 Jean Alesi

6 Alain Menu

7 Christijan Albers

8 Laurent Aiello

9 Christian Abt

...

13 Karl Wendlinger

Mattias Ekstroem Team PlayStation2 Red Bull Abt-Audi TT-R #5
”I’m very happy. Third place at the EuroSpeedway is a very good result for us, I scored more important points and am therefore still within striking distance of the leaders. We weren’t the fastest this weekend, but made the best of our chances. I’m also very pleased for my team, as both pit stops were excellent. The race was extremely hard as I was under permanent pressure and couldn’t afford to make a single mistake. And on top of all this it was incredibly hot. I feel much more comfortable at minus 23 degrees during the Swedish winter...”

Hans-Jürgen Abt Team Director
”That was a tough weekend. The EuroSpeedway has always been a difficult circuit for us. Apart from the two accidents on Friday, we survived the weekend relatively well. We saw in qualifying that our car is on the limit at this circuit. However, the team worked very well and, in principle, we held our qualifying positions in the race. Christian’s performance was very good, he achieved the best result this season for a year-old car.”