Audi scores double win at Hockenheim

With a double victory at Hockenheim, Audi managed a successful start to the 2007 DTM season. 101,000 spectators (throughout the weekend) witnessed an impressive début of the evolution Audi A4 DTM that was the quickest car on all three days of the event. The Swede Mattias Ekström celebrated his tenth victory in the DTM with a flawless race and perfect strategy of Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline. Martin Tomczyk (Germany) bumped Mercedes driver Bruno Spengler from second place on the last lap to complete Audi’s triumph.

For Audi, this was the first success on the current track layout of the German Grand Prix circuit and the first victory at Hockenheim in exactly five years. The double victory might even have turned into a triple exploit of the Audi A4 DTM cars if it had not been for Bruno Spengler hitting Timo Schneider’s car after a driving mistake. The newcomer to Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline thus dropped to ninth place after the crash in which he was not at fault, deprived of the reward for the perfect race he had driven up to that point. Spengler later received a 50-second penalty for his action.

The round at Hockenheim was overshadowed by a serious accident on the opening lap, which involved Audi drivers Tom Kristensen (Denmark), Alexandre Prémat (France) and Adam Carroll (Great Britain). After slight contact with another car, Kristensen had spun at the entrance to the "Parabolica" and was then "torpedoed"" at high speed by several vehicles running behind him. While Carroll sustained no injuries in the accident at all, Kristensen and Prémat required medical attention at the site of the crash. Both drivers were subsequently taken to the trackside Medical Center, and later to hospitals for thorough medical examinations.