» DTM Valencia: Ekström wins, Tomczyk claims 2011 title

Slick pit work helped Tomczyk claim third, and the championship crown

Mattias Ekström has claimed his third win in four races with another lights-to-flag display in his Audi to win the DTM Race of Valencia, heading home an Audi 1-2-3-4-5-6 that saw the carmaker’s own Martin Tomczyk claim the Drivers’ Championship, sealing the crown by finishing in third place.

Having secured a comfortable pole position yesterday, Ekström led from the get-go and quickly built himself an early lead over second-placed Filipe Albuquerque before the first of his two compulsory pit stops.

And as impressive as Ekström’s win was, it was also the performance of Albuquerque that was equally eye-catching, with the Portuguese driver showing that his qualifying pace was no fluke in the older-spec Audi en route to finishing a fine second. It was his first-ever DTM podium finish.

Tomczyk secured his championship crown – the first in the series’ history for a driver running an older-spec car – courtesy of an outstanding start from his tenth-placed grid slot.

He gained four placed in the opening lap, and then leapfrogged three drivers in his second pit stop to move into third place. And with Tomczyk merely needing to finish in the points in front his main championship rival Bruno Spengler, the championship crown was assured with Spengler’s run to seventh place.

Timo Scheider claimed fourth place off the back of a long first stint, with his pace on more worn tyres proving sufficient to vault ahead of the race’s early third- and fourth-placed runners, David Coulthard and Renger van der Zande.

Van der Zande and Coulthard actually finished fifth and sixth on the road respectively, but the pair was racing under appeal from their original top-four grid slots after their Mercedes cars were found to have failed post-qualifying scrutineering checks. Their results will not be formally classified unless their appeals to series’ officials are accepted.

As it stands, the points’ positions are therefore completed by the Audi pairing of Miguel Molina and Oliver Jarvis, while Spengler claimed seventh place on the last lap when he was let through by Jamie Green, who fell to tenth behind Gary Paffett and Mike Rockenfeller..

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2011 DTM Race of Valencia Final Classification (45 laps):

	Driver	Entrant / Car	Result
1.	Mattias Ekström	Abt Audi A4 DTM 2009	1:10:45.452
2.	Filipe Albuquerque	Rosberg Audi A4 DTM 2008	+ 18.103
3.	Martin Tomczyk	Phoenix Audi A4 DTM 2008	+ 33.950
4.	Timo Scheider	Abt Audi A4 DTM 2009	+ 34.346
DQ.	Renger van der Zande	Persson Mercedes C-Class 2008
DQ.	David Coulthard	Mücke Mercedes C-Class 2008
5.	Miguel Molina	Abt Audi A4 DTM 2008	+ 39.788
6.	Oliver Jarvis	Abt Audi A4 DTM 2009	+ 40.655
7.	Bruno Spengler	HWA Mercedes C-Class 2009	+ 41.238
8.	Gary Paffett	HWA Mercedes C-Class 2009	+ 41.791
9.	Mike Rockenfeller	Abt Audi A4 DTM 2009	+ 44.671
10.	Jamie Green	HWA Mercedes C-Class 2009	+ 45.971
11.	Susie Stoddart	Persson Mercedes C-Class 2008	+ 49.720
12.	Christian Vietoris	Persson Mercedes C-Class 2008	+ 50.736
13.	Ralf Schumacher	HWA Mercedes C-Class 2009	+ 52.686
14.	Rahel Frey	Phoenix Audi A4 DTM 2008	+ 1:02.877
15.	Maro Engel	Mücke Mercedes C-Class 2008	+ 1:16.230
16.	Edoardo Mortara	Rosberg Audi A4 DTM 2008	3 laps behind