Defending DTM champion Mattias Ekström stole team-mate Timo Scheider's thunder in the opening race of the 2008 campaign at Hockenheim this weekend, by beginning his title defence in the best possible fashion as Audi left rivals Mercedes trailing.
A perfect start and two impeccable pit-stops were the key to Ekström's success, as the Swede catapulted off the front row of the grid ahead of pole-sitter Scheider, and though he would be pushed hard by his Audi Sport Team Abt colleague race-long, he held on to take the chequered flag just over eight tenths of a second to the good to seal his eleventh DTM career victory. To complete the Ingolstadt marque's joy, ‘Mr Le Mans' Tom Kristensen came home third after starting fifth on the grid, albeit almost 20 seconds behind the lead pair.
The Dane was another to benefit from his Audi crew's slick pit work as he vaulted Mercedes rival Bruno Spengler in the second round of stops, going on to finish just over a second ahead of the three-pointed star's leading representative on what was a distinctly low-key day – even weekend – for the Stuttgart concern. Indeed, the French-Canadian had his hands rather more full in the race's closing stages in fending off the advances of Martin Tomczyk behind – the Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline ace fighting back after a tardy getaway – and that he did so was the only thing that prevented Audi from taking a clean sweep of the top four places.
Tomczyk's efforts to get by actually saw him out-brake himself on the penultimate lap, locking up and briefly shooting off the track, but the German maintained his composure to rejoin comfortably ahead of sixth-placed Jamie Green, and indeed still right in the wheeltracks of his quarry Spengler, as the duo took the chequered flag just four tenths of a second apart and both within spitting distance of the final podium spot.
![Audi stars [L-R] Tom Kristensen, winner Mattias Ekstrom and Timo Scheider celebrate the Ingolstadt manufacturer's impeccable one-two-three in the 2008 DTM season-opener at Hockenheim [pic credit: DTM Media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/428434.jpg)
