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Friday practices
Despite suffering from flu, Marcel drove long runs in the Friday practices and concentrated on set-up for Sunday's race. "I simply don't feel as fit as usual," he said. "But so far the cough isn't bothering me too much." Marcel was eleventh and tenth respectively in practices and is anticipating the night qualifying session: "That will be interesting; it's something new and I look forward to it."
Audi topped the times in both sessions; Mattias Ekström in the first with a 1:26.147 -- exactly the same time as fellow Audi driver Martin Tomczyk. Bernd Schneider was the best Mercedes driver in third and less than a second separated the top twelve. Tomczyk beat Laurent Aiello and Ekström to the top in second practice, 1:25.796, and Jean Alesi was the best Mercedes driver in fifth. After the trio of Audis, Opel's Peter Dumbreck was best of the rest in fourth.
For the first time in DTM, there was a night-time practice session due to the super-pole qualifying taking place in the dark tomorrow night. "The night session was okay," said Marcel. "The difference between that and daylight was not as much as I had expected."
Saturday qualifying
Marcel was tenth in Saturday practice while Audi continued to be strong in first and second. Jean Alesi was the best Mercedes in third and the top ten were separated by less than a second. In qualifying Marcel just managed to stay in the top ten, finishing tenth, although only six tenths off Bernd Schneider's provisional pole of 1:25.031. Super-pole will take place tonight at 9.25pm UK time after a 15 minute warm up.
Still feeling unwell, Marcel said: "I expected an average qualifying but I'm losing time. We will change a few things on the car and should be faster."
"I had expected a better result than tenth place, however, we had the wrong strategy for qualifying today. We should have planned two laps per set of tyres because we were not able to get the optimum out of the tyres with only one lap per set. Now I hope to do better tonight."
Unfortunately the super-pole did not go any better. Marcel was out first and ended up tenth on the grid, which he was disappointed about: "It has not been a great weekend," he said. "I thought my lap was good but obviously it wasn't. Now I will just try everything in the race. I think we're better in race trim, the longer runs were promising."
Mercedes looked rather unsettled in qualifying in general; Christijan Albers was the best, in third, but even former champion Bernd Schneider couldn't do better than sixth. Audi's Mattias Ekström took pole position with a 1:25.095, the first time this season it hasn't been a Mercedes on pole -- only Marcel and Schneider made the front of the grid until now.
Sunday race
Things improved slightly on Sunday; Marcel was sixth in the morning warm up and finished the race fifth to add to his points tally. Another good start got him up to seventh, from tenth on the grid, and then he got past Opel's Peter Dumbreck for sixth.
Under pressure from Schneider after the first round of pit stops that had got him up to fourth, Marcel lost the place to his fellow Mercedes driver and then stayed fifth all the way home.
While there was action elsewhere on tack, Marcel had a fairly quiet race but couldn't match the pace of the front-runners. His fifth place keeps him third in the championship, the fight is still open, but this weekend is one he'd rather forget.
"My start wasnt bad, however, I was not able to push today. At least I scored four points. I suffered from a light flu this weekend, but this is no excuse."
See News for Marcel's view of Nürburgring
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