ALBERS WINS #9

At Zandvoort Holland's Christian Albers won his fourth seasonal DTM - for AMG Mercedes it was already the eighth victory on nine outings. The only non-Mercedes win this year was Aiello's with the Audi TT-R. By finishing second Bernd Schneider could maintain the provisional series' lead - be it only with ONE point. On October 5 the series will be decided at Hockenheim. Albers and Schneider are the only drivers able to win, since the third ranked man, Marcel Fässler, follows at 14 points, and since the maximum of points which can be won at Hockenheim is restricted to 10.
No less than three racers, wo could win not a single point at the previous eight rounds scored at Zandvoort their first points: Manuel Reuter by finishing fourth, Jeroen Bleekemolen by finishing seventh and Karl Wendlinger by finishing eighth. Only four racers failed to score points this year. From Germany it are Bernd Maylander, Peter Terting and Stefan Mücke; from Japan Katsutomo Kaneishi.
At Zandvoort Opel gave the impression to be able to win its first race of the season, but once more the car was unreliable towards the end. Mercedes is as good as unbeatable this season.

 FÄSSLER WINS #8

In Austria at the A1 Marcel Fässler offered AMG Mercedes its 7th victory on 8 DTM outings this year. The top-5 finishers are the top-5 of the provisional ranking. Here Bernd Schneider, who finished second, increases his advance over Christian Albers from 1 point to 3 points. Fässler is now third, 9 points down to Schneider. Once more the Opels Astra V8 disappointed. First Opel at the A1 was Alain Menu's, finishing not higher than 7th. Excellent performance by the Briton Gary Paffett who finished 6th in his Keke Rosberg Mercedes. It's the second time in a row that Paffett finishes within the points. After 8 out of 10 rounds still 7 racers are pointless: Manuel Reuter (!), Karl Wendlinger, Bernd Mayländer, Peter Terting, Jeroen Bleekemolen, Katsutomo Kaneishi and Stefan Mücke. Opel's best racer this year, Peter Dumbreck, was already out after the first lap, due to a collision with the Opel of Timo Scheider.

 AIELLO WINS #7

At the Nürburgring Audi won its first pole position with Mattias Ekstöm after a nightly session. The Wertungslauf went also to Audi with last year's DMT champion Laurent Aiello as winner. A series of six consecutive wins by Mercedes was thus stopped. By finishing second, ahead of the provisional leader Bernd Schneider, Holland's Christian Albers, earlier winner of three rounds, closes Schneider until one point. Both they have now a 11 and 10 points advance over Marcel Fässler, who finished fifth. By his victory Aiello moves to the fourth place in the provisional ranking, however at 17 points from the leader. That means that, with only three rounds to go, the 2003 DTM-win can hardly escape to one of the three named Mercedes drivers.
The best Opel racer, England's Peter Dumbreck, who finished suring the sux first rounds always into the points, came home not higher than tenth, thus out of the points. It makes him dropping in the provisional ranking from the fifth to the seventh place, with the same number of points as pole winner Mattias Ekström. There were more than 85,000 spectators at the Nürburgring, a new DTM record.  Of the 21 racers still eight have still to win their real first points. Among them Manuel Reuter and Joachim Winkelhock. At the Nürburgring England's Gary Pafett won his first points.

 ALESI WINS #6

At Donington AMG Mercedes won for the sixth consecutive time, now with Jean Alesi, finishing res. 1"466 ahead of Bernd Schneider and 1"841 ahead of Mattias Ekström. Since Christian Albers came home not higher than fifth, he lost the lead in the provisional ranking. Bernd Schneider is the new leader, followed at 3 points by Albers. Alesi moves into fifth position.
During the Qualirennen, preceeding the Wertungs-lauf we lost no less than six cars: the two Hasseröder Abt Audis of Laurent Aiello and Christian Abt, the two OPC Team Holzer Opel Astras of Manuel Reuter and Alain Menu, the Kaneishi Mercedes and the Audi Junior of Martin Tomczyk.
Once more the Opel Astras were unable to follow the pace set by the Mercedes cars. First Opel was Peter Dumbreck's, finishing sixth on the home ground. Original Teile AMG-Mercedes scored their first points with a seventh place overall for Thomas Jäger. Nice performance too of Gary Paffett (GB), finishing ninth, but failing to offer Keke Rosberg's team its first points of the season. Of the Audis only Mattias Ekström's was really competitive after three similar cars were eliminated at the Qualirennen. Bernd Schneider took the pole for the Wertungslauf. In the points standing per make Mercedes (144 points) pulverises Audi (48 points) and Opel (42 points).

 ALBERS WINS #5

At the Norisring Christian Albers won already his third DTM race out of five rounds. For Mercedes it is its fifth consecutive win. In the provisional ranking at mid-series the young Dutch racer Christian Albers is one point ahead of Bernd Schneider (who TQ-ed). Another Mercedes driver, Switzerland's Marcel Fässler, who finished as runneup to Albers at the Norisring, is third, 7 points behind the leader.
First non-Mercedes racer in the ranking is Peter Dumbreck, already 13 points down to Albers. At the Norisring Dumbreck should have finished third. However, after his second pit stop, Dumbreck (Opel) was serious hindered by the Audi of Peter Terting. When Schneider, who was fourth behind Dumbreck, made his second pit stop he came back on the track 2 seconds ahead of Dumbreck. Terting was not sanctionned for his unsportmanslike way of driving.
Of the 22 racers seen at the start in DTM this year, only 11 scored points. At the Norisring Joachim Winkelhock, finishing 8th, scored his first points of the year. Mercedes Original Teile, Keke Rosberg's Mercedes 24-hour Service and Audi Junior failed to finish once among the top-8 with their two cars. Just as ARTA AMG - using Katsutomo Kaneishi as driver, and entering only one car - they scored not one single point. For Rosberg and Original Teile that's already the second pointless season.

 SCHNEIDER WINS #4

At the EuroSpeedway Lausitz in Germany Bernd Schneider won his second DTM round. Since team mate Christian Albers, who won the two other rounds, came not higher than seventh, Schneider leads again the provisio-nal standings 3 points ahead of Albers and 8 of Marcel Fässler who failed to finish within the points. For the first time this year the three makes (Mercedes, Audi and Opel) finished on the podium. Especially Peter Dumbreck of Opel makes a good champion-ship: at all four first rounds he finished within the points and it is generally exspected that if Opel wins this year it will be with Dumbreck at the wheel. Last year's champion, Laurent Aiello, disappointed by bringing his Audi TT-R home in no better position than eighth. In the provisional ranking he is now fourth, but already at 10 points fromleader Bernd Schneider.

ALBERS: ALSO #3

Only 24 years old Christian Albers, having replaced Uwe Albert earlier, won his second consecutive DTM round at the Nürburgring. He started with the works Mercedes from second position behind team mate Marcel Fässler. He had no problem to go out on the lead, followed by Fässler and a trio with Bernd Schneider (Mercedes) and the Opels of Alain Menu and Peter Dumbreck. The last one seemed on his way to the podium when he was hurt by Bernd Schneider. Laurent Aiello, who came from rank 11 on the grid, could pass both to take his third consecuti-ve third place. Alain Menu lost that third place after a stop-and-go penalty because he passed the white line on quitting the pits. Albers leads now Fässler by 3 points and Schneider by 5 points. Only 10 of the 22 racers collected already points. In Keke Rosberg's team Patrick Huisman was replaced by the Briton Gary Paffett.