Mattias Ekstrom continued his devastating form today by cruising to a seemingly easy
DTM victory in Valencia on the Ricardo Tormo Circuit. However, it was Martin Tomczyk who stole everyone's attention, with a scintillating champions drive from eleventh to the final step of the rostrum to become the first driver in
DTM history to win the championship in old spec machinery.
Ekstrom, when it mattered, looked untouchable all weekend, while his fellow frontline Audi's seemed to struggle. Ekstrom's performance was somewhat matched by Filipe Albequerque in his old spec Audi however, who cruised home to an equally dominant second place.
Tomczyk's championship run to the podium provided a little more excitement after a phenomenal first lap saw him jump immediately to sixth. Having kept the pressure on the Mercedes duo of David Coulthard and Renger van der Zande along with Timo Scheider who ran third, fourth and fifth respectively, Tomczyk was able to jump them all after the second round of stops.
Former double champion Timo Scheider enjoyed a solid afternoon eventually finishing fourth after starting seventh on the grid. The German made use of a slightly different strategy to leap frog both DC and van der Zande.
van der Zande and Coulthard displayed a strong showing and finished fifth and sixth on the road having run third and fourth up until the first round of stops. It may yet all prove academic however, as both were competing under appeal, and as such they are not officially classified.
Local favourite Miguel Molina thus took seventh on the road, but fifth in the classification to give his home fans something to cheer about.
Britain's Oliver Jarvis also benefited from the confusion and was provisionally sixth. Either way the Brit is guaranteed a points paying finish.
Mercedes 'A' squad took their disappointing form from qualifying into the race with Bruno Spengler and Brit Gary Paffett coming home only seventh and eighth.
Audi's Mike Rockenfeller didn't enjoy the best of days either after making a poor getaway. The German subsequently fell down the field to as low as thirteenth, however after passing Edoardo Mortara and Jamie Green in the closing stages, Rockenfeller was able to salvage ninth. Green provisionally rounded out the top ten finishers.
by Simon Evans