DTM Qualifying, Donington Park – 18/05/02

The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters visited British soil for the first time since 1996 and made a long awaited return to Donington Park, which it had last raced at in 1995.

The star of the wet qualifying session was undoubtably DTM rookie and former F1 superstar Jean Alesi. On slick tyres he set a pole time of 1 minute 38.770 seconds in his Mercedes, which was unbeaten until the last 30 seconds of the 45 minute session which would decide his place on the grid for the first race. He was pipped by Opel’s number one driver Manuel Reuter. This was Opel’s first pole in a long time in the DTM and after a disastrous 2001, it looked like their fortunes for this season were considerably brighter.

Of the former British Touring Car Champions in the field, Alain Menu lined up 3rd (on exactly the same time as Alesi), Joachim Winkelhock claimed 6th spot and 1999 winner Laurent Aiello suffered a poor session and only came 17th in his Audi. The only British representative was Scotland’s Peter Dumbreck who would start from 13th place in his year old Mercedes CLK.

Qualification Race – 19/05/02

After a rain-hit Saturday at Donington, clear blue skies and a slight breeze greeted the drivers on the grid. Before the start, there was controversy already as polesitter Manuel Reuter claimed he couldn’t see the starting lights. As a quickfire solution, the DTM officials decided to move the whole grid back one row to enable Reuter to see the lights.

It didn’t make much difference however, as Jean Alesi got a lightning start to blast away from the Opel of Reuter and head down to Redgate in the lead from Martin Tomczyk’s Audi TT-R. Behind though, carnage was about to happen. Joachim Winkelhock stalled his Team Phoenix Astra on the grid and was struck by the unfortunate Uwe Alzen who had nowhere to go but into the back of the stationary Opel. Just after this, Stefan Mucke’s Mercedes and Yves Olivier’s Opel clashed at Redgate and eventually pulled themselves out of the gravel to continue a considerable way down the field.

With carbonfibre and fluids allover the Wheatcroft Straight, there was no choice but to bring out the Safety Car immediately. This would be out on the track for 4 laps, which resulted in the 8 lap qualification race being a 4 lap sprint to the end. Peter Dumbreck and Patrick Huisman were penalised during this stint and had to drive into the pits for a stop-go penalty. They would not be the only recipients that day.

As soon as the race restarted, Tomczyk was allover Alesi into Redgate and the Frenchman staved off a side by side attack down the Craner Curves to lead into the Old Hairpin and for the remainder of the race. Back in 3rd place was Reuter who had recovered from his poor start to head a battle between Marcel Fassler and Timo Scheider. Fassler dived inside Scheider’s Opel at the final corner of the race at Goddards and took 4th place on the grid for the Main Race. Laurent Aiello, the championship leader, was having a terrible race after only starting 17th. He fought his way upto 11th place, only to clip teammate Mattias Ekstrom’s car and damage his bonnet, which severely impaired his view from the windscreen and he pitted on the last lap to retire. Peter Dumbreck would begin the Main Race in 17th place after his stop-go penalty.

Main Race

It seemed like the Audi dominance of the season so far was being broken by Mercedes and Opel. Martin Tomczyk was out to prove in his Abt Audi that he would uphold his team’s honour in the 25 lap Main Race by being the highest placed TT-R from 2nd on the grid. The young German didn’t get a good start though and ended up 3rd in the run to the first corner. Alesi meanwhile had to fend off AMG Mercedes teammate Marcel Fassler for most of the first lap, even getting side by side and making contact several times on the run through the Fogartys esses.

Fassler lost out at the Melbourne hairpin to Tomczyk however who had recovered from his poor start. Next time around at Melbourne, Tomczyk was ready to try and pass Alesi, but the move failed and he was tipped into a spin by Fassler, which caused a chain reaction shunt behind them. Reuter’s Opel slowed down to avoid the wayward Audi, but in doing so startled teammate Timo Scheider and the PM Magazine Astra rammed into his team leader which severely damaged Scheider’s car and he coasted round the next lap minus his bonnet and various bits of cooling pipe to retire. Tomczyk carried on lower down the order but eventually collided with Patrick Huisman and pulled out of the race on lap 12. Fassler meanwhile, was judged to have jumped the start and was handed a stop-go penalty which put him to the back of the pack with a mandatory pitstop still to be done.

The Audi of Christian Abt stormed through the field from 12th on the grid and was up to 5th in the race before the pitstops began to take place. Reigning DTM champion Bernd Schneider had come up from 8th position at the start to 2nd after the chaotic opening first 5 laps. He then began to challenge teammate Alesi before the Frenchman took his pitstop on lap 8 and he did the same a lap later. They both emerged from their mandatory stops as close as they were before and Schneider was harrying the CLK of Alesi for most of the next couple of laps before he was adjugded to have went too fast in the pits and suffered a stop-go penalty. Schneider was called in again after being deemed to have sped on his stop-go as well! This put him well out of reach of a decent finish and Alesi now led on his own, until Alain Menu’s Opel started to catch him. Unfortunately for the Swiss driver, he received just as much luck as his five other Opel teammates did and was hit by a puncture which ended his hopes of scoring his best DTM finish and his first ever DTM points. He eventually finished 8th, but it was still two places shy of a points finish.

The Abt Audis of Abt, Ekstrom and Karl Wendlinger were revelling in the number of Mercedes and Opels which were falling by the wayside. Abt had climbed to 2nd place, with the young Swede Ekstrom up to 3rd place after starting from the pitlane. Wendlinger blotted the Abt Sportsline copybook though, by spinning at Goddards after a clash with Christijan Albers’ Mercedes which passed him for 4th position. Wendlinger eventually took 5th and became the third Audi in the points. Teammate Aiello was having yet another disaster though. He crudely knocked Michael Bartels off at Redgate and received a stop-go for his misdemeanour. He then was awarded another two of these which culminated in a black flag and a bad end to a disappointing return to the UK. Dumbreck struggled again to 10th place after yet another stop-go penalty for his car being on it’s jacks three minutes before the start of the race.

Jean Alesi meanwhile, was in a class of his own out front. After the puncture of Menu’s tyre, he was never challenged and cruised round the track to take his first Main Race win and complete a popular double for the highly emotional French-Sicilian. He was lifted aloft on the Donington podium by Abt and Ekstrom to a rapturous applause from the vast majority of the crowd, as he celebrated his first race win since his only Grand Prix victory in the 1995 Canadian race for his beloved Ferrari.

It was a highly successful return to the traditional British venue of the DTM and everything looks very good for a return to the track in 2003 after a superb reception from teams, drivers, fans and officials alike.