Driving a ‘tin-top’ is massively different to the open-wheel cars I've been driving over the years. It's different in so many ways - it's a big, heavy car, with carbon brakes, differences in power and the way it is delivered, a different way that the car rolls, and so on. The only other car that I've raced where I had a roof over my head was the
Daytona Prototype in the Rolex 24 but, again, the DTM car isn’t really that similar to the DP either. It's a proper race car though, but I'd probably say it's more like an F3 car than anything else I've driven.
I've had to adapt the way I drive and the way I prepare for the weekends because things are done so differently to how they were done in America. It's been a bit of a culture shock as, having had to get used to doing things the American way, I'm now getting used to having to do them the European way again. It's been different, but it's been good. It's not a better or worse way of doing things, it's just a different way, but it's good to be able to adapt yourself like that.
The DTM's policy of trying to balance the field by means of success ballast hasn't really had that much effect on us - until now. I'm hoping that that's changed because, in the last week actually, they decided to lower our weight a little bit and group us with the 2007 cars, so I'm hoping that that will make a difference to us and we can be more competitive and mix it in the field a bit.
It was becoming very segregated, with all the 2008 cars getting to final qualifying and the front of the grid, then all the 2007 cars, and then Christijan and I, who may mix it up a little and get a couple of the 2007 Mercedes but weren't really racing anyone other than ourselves. So I hope these changes will mix things up a bit, make the 2007 cars more competitive and allow us to be more competitive also.
![Katherine Legge - Futurecom TME Audi A4 [pic credit: DTM Media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/463000.jpg)
