"After Hamburg, I thought I was ready for the crowds, but the first race at Hockenheim was a shock. Over 100,000 mad fans turned up, this was way more than for the previous years
F1 GP!!! That is when I realised DTM was big. Unfortunately, the race was a shock as well. Audi arrived there with four new 2005 spec cars that we felt we could take a good fight to Mercedes but soon found that the car was not adapted very well to the track. We worked hard to get a balance but did not really find a competitive set up. I finished just outside the points and as a whole we were disappointed with only two of us finishing at all and Ekstrom, the then champion, down in fifth. Hard work had to be done.
"In typical Audi fashion, they did not take that lying down and went testing. Ekstrom and Kristensen completed a test at Lausitzring and when we turned up there for race two, the car was in much better shape. I had a few small problems in practice and in qualifying was less than two-tenths behind Tom K. However, on the small tight track and in DTM that meant I was five positions behind on the grid! DTM is close. The race itself was a going well until I came out of the pits on new tyres and was behind Marcel Fassler on very used ones. I dived down the inside and we collided, both our races over. It was then a quick trip to the stewards and they were ready to give me a penalty, but when asked what happened Marcel said 'sorry, I had lost my mirror and did not see him' - little bit of a lucky escape as I think it was 50/50. However, the race was a zero points, which was a disappointment as Tom had managed to get from seventh up to second in the carnage.
"It was then off to Spa, however, just before that, I had something to attend that, I was told, I was
not going to miss, the birth of our son, Finlay. He was born on Tuesday, 9 May, just before his due date which was the Sunday of the Monaco GP. This was lucky as our doctor was unable to guarantee being there as you can imagine the logistics of GP traffic on race day are a nightmare in Monaco. DTM colleague Bernd Schneider had a little girl on the same day and both of us were locked in battle in Spa a couple of days later but neither would score points with Bernd having a major accident at Eau Rouge and me having a puncture three laps from home. However, it was a strong weekend and second fastest in warm up told us we were on the right road.
