Bernd Schneider drove his D2 AMG Mercedes to victory in the eighth round of the 2001 DTM at Austria's A1-Ring and defended his championship title. After his third win of the season, Schneider has won his third championship after 1995 and 2000 with two races still to go. He is the first driver in DTM history to successfully defend his title.
In the 24-lap race, Laurent Aiello (Abt-Audi TT-R) finished second ahead of Uwe Alzen (Warsteiner AMG Mercedes) und Manuel Reuter (Opel Astra V8 Coupé). Schneider's win in Austria was his 34th victory in DTM and ITC which he all scored with Mercedes-Benz. Schneider who also won the 1995 International Touring Car Series ITC posted the fastest lap of the race with a time of 1m 28.639s, the 45th of his career and the fastest lap of the whole weekend.
Starting from his 17th DTM pole position, Schneider won the eight-lap qualifying race with a clean sweep ahead of his team mate Peter Dumbreck and Uwe Alzen. Original-Teile AMG Mercedes driver Thomas Jäger retired after a collision with Timo Scheider (Opel Astra V8 Coupé) which was caused by Mattias Ekström (Abt-Audi TT-R). Jäger was not able to participate in the second race.
After the start of the main event, Bernd Schneider led the field through the first corner while Dumbreck behind him was pushed into a spin. The collision involved several cars including Christijan Albers (Original-Teile AMG Mercedes), David Saelens (Service 24h AMG Mercedes) and Bernd Mayländer (Eschmann-Stahl AMG Mercedes) who were all forced to retire.
The safety car was deployed for four laps to enable the marshals to clean the track. After the restart on lap 5 Schneider led ahead of Aiello and Marcel Fässler (Warsteiner AMG Mercedes). On lap 16, Schneider came into the pits for his compulsory tyre change which his team managed in 8.3sec.
Schneider rejoined the race in second position behind Opel driver Manuel Reuter who maintained the lead until his pit stop on lap 22 while Schneider drove to victory 8.371sec ahead of Aiello.
