“In due course Dr Ullrich will reveal what exactly will happen with the drivers and where they will race. Maybe you won't see us racing so much until at least after Le Mans, but I've had my talk with him and I said I'm ready; wherever Audi wants me to go I will do that.”

Kristensen was talking during the annual Race of Champions end-of-season extravaganza at Wembley Stadium, where he and Audi DTM team-mate Mattias Ekström were narrowly pipped to Nations' Cup glory by the German pairing of Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel, before he went out in the first round of the drivers' contest to the seven-time Formula 1 World Champion too.

“We finished in the final of the Nations' Cup,” he affirmed, “and I had the pleasure of having very good fights in the front wheel-drive Fiat Abarth Turbo against Yvan Muller, then beating Jenson Button in the same car, and then in the Race of Champions car against [Andy] Priaulx.

“To have two runs in the RoC car against Michael and lose by less than two tenths or something like that, I would say it was a job not done to perfection, but close. If you look at the times, I think we set the fastest time in the RoC car all day.

“Unfortunately I was a little bit slower in the drivers' competition, and for sure you can choose worse than Michael Schumacher to go out against. He did very well in that car last year too – it seems to be his favourite – so in that sense I was pretty pleased.

“David [Coulthard] basically crashed everything and he made it to the final, so those were the tactics [to take], and well done. Obviously it would have been lovely to see him win in a year where he bowed out of the big one (F1). He certainly entertained the crowds, but he kept the mechanics busy too!”

by Russell Atkins