Canadian Bruno Spengler has made his first mark of the 2011 DTM season. Having claimed pole position on Saturday, the 27-year old Mercedes-Benz driver achieved a dominant lights-to-flag victory in the season opener at Hockenheim.
Spengler talked about his win to Auto123.com.
“What a nice way to start the season! Pole position, and then victory – I’m really happy to have won my 8th victory in the DTM,” said Spengler to Auto123.com.
“But thinks did not go as smoothly as planned. I had a technical problem on my car at the beginning of the last free practice session on Saturday. Something broke at the front of the car, causing the diffuser to touch the ground and making the car undriveable.
The crew worked hard all session long to find and fix the problem. So I did not complete one single flying lap during the 90-minute practice session. But the mechanics did a fantastic job fixing the car in such a hurry. Great job guys!
I went into qualifying without really knowing how the car would handle. In Q1 and Q2 I was still getting to grips with my braking points. We worked a bit on the set-up along the way and I managed to clinch pole position at the end of Q4.
I had a good race start, but not the greatest. I had some wheel spin and Ekstrom powered in front of me at the first corner. But I entered the corner with more speed than him and I exited a corner in front of him! After three or four corners, I realised that the car was handling very well and I began to stretch my lead.
But ten laps from the finish we had a full course yellow and the Safety Car came into action. I was not really happy to see my three-second advantage gone away.
Spengler talked about his win to Auto123.com.
“What a nice way to start the season! Pole position, and then victory – I’m really happy to have won my 8th victory in the DTM,” said Spengler to Auto123.com.
“But thinks did not go as smoothly as planned. I had a technical problem on my car at the beginning of the last free practice session on Saturday. Something broke at the front of the car, causing the diffuser to touch the ground and making the car undriveable.
The crew worked hard all session long to find and fix the problem. So I did not complete one single flying lap during the 90-minute practice session. But the mechanics did a fantastic job fixing the car in such a hurry. Great job guys!
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| Photo: dtm.com |
I went into qualifying without really knowing how the car would handle. In Q1 and Q2 I was still getting to grips with my braking points. We worked a bit on the set-up along the way and I managed to clinch pole position at the end of Q4.
I had a good race start, but not the greatest. I had some wheel spin and Ekstrom powered in front of me at the first corner. But I entered the corner with more speed than him and I exited a corner in front of him! After three or four corners, I realised that the car was handling very well and I began to stretch my lead.
But ten laps from the finish we had a full course yellow and the Safety Car came into action. I was not really happy to see my three-second advantage gone away.