27.8.2001
Opel scores a top five finish at the 'Ring

Opel scored one of its best results of the season in round seven of the DTM at the Nuburgring's short circuit on Sunday, August26. Manuel Reuter (Opel Team Phoenix) finished fifth, which proved the recent development changes to the Astra V8 Coupe have paid off.

In front of the biggest ever crowd for a DTM event at the Nurburgring (in total 69.000 spectators), Reuter climbed through the pack in spectacular style in both races. After starting the qualification race from 20th position, due to his best lap in qualifying being disallowed because of a yellow flag infringement, he overtook seven cars in the short 10 lap event.

From his sixth row starting position in the main event, Reuter soon picked his way through the field to hold fifth position until a passing manoeuvre at the Castrol chicane didn't work out as planned and he lost places to Christijan Albers and Thomas Jager. As he set about regaining his position, Manuel dived to the inside of Albers at the Castrol chicane on lap 26 but the Dutchman turned in causing a collision and both cars spun.

Undeterred, Reuter regained the circuit and held off the AMG Mercedes of championship leader Bernd Schneider for fifth position at the end of the 33 lap race.

"In terms of overtaking, Manuel was in a class of his own," said Opel motorsport boss Volker Strycek, "He attacked very hard but totally fair and scored a result we can be very happy with. Now we have go Manuel running at the front, we have to concentrate on our other drivers so they can do likewise."

Reuter, whose quickest race laptime was just 0.019secs slower than race winner Laurent Aiello's, was delighted with his result and the fact he could close on the leaders ahead of him.

"This result is a reward for all of the very hard work done by everyone at Opel," said Reuter. "We have shown today the potential of what this car is capable of. My set-up really worked well in the races and it was great to do well today, especially in front of so many Opel employees who came to watch." Opel had sold nearly 5.000 tickets to employees and fans.

"This result has given us extra motivation to run at the front," added Strycek. "We need to evaluate how it went for our other drivers, and we also have to work on our qualifying performance to give us more of a chance to score good race results."

Also Timo Scheider (Opel Team Holzer), eleventh on the grid, was able to hold the pace but he had to retire after a stone damaged his radiator. Michael Bartels (Opel Team Holzer) finished the feature race on eleventh position ahead of Alain Menu (Opel Euroteam) and Joachim Winkelhock (Opel Team Holzer).

Round eight of the DTM takes place at the A1-Ring in Austria on September 9th.