“The fact that you contest the finale there as well always makes Hockenheim a very special venue. Even though the circuit does not differ from others in a major way, it presents a historically interesting situation – those running at the front at Hockenheim usually compete for the title as well.
“For the season-opener, over 100,000 people have consistently come to watch our sport for many years. That's simply incredible. The fans put up banners, they spur on Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline or me personally, and they flock to the paddock or the pit-lane for the pit-walk in large numbers.
“There are three dates on the race schedule which are absolute highlights for me in terms of the audience – Hockenheim one, the Norisring and Hockenheim two, and at Oschersleben as well we've always been very competitive with the Audi A4. I'm assuming that the new car will be as good there as the old one was.”
Indeed, the last time the DTM campaign began with back-to-back race weekends – in 1990 –Hans-Joachim Stuck went on to claim the Ingolstadt marque's debut series laurels with the then new Audi V8 Quattro. Its successor 18 years on – the 2008-spec Audi A4 DTM – has been painstakingly developed at Audi Sport over the past twelve months, and has set some extremely encouraging testing times so far up against Mercedes.
Following a one-two success for Ekström and Tomczyk at Hockenheim twelve months ago – marking Audi's 40th series victory in its eighth season – and the manufacturer's traditionally strong form both there and at Oschersleben, Dr Wolfgang Ullrich is in confident spirits. What's more, Kristensen triumphed at Oschersleben in both 2004 and 2006, Audi has taken pole there three times in the last four outings and Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline has retained the same four-strong driver line-up for the first time since the marque's return to the DTM back in 2004.
![The 2008 Audi DTM driver line-up [pic credit: Audi Communication Motorsport]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/426594.jpg)
