The Mercedes race car of Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, sponsored by Pixum.de, will be on the road in Kent this weekend. This will be a race on home soil for four Mercedes drivers; Bernd Schneider was last year's winner and Lewis Hamilton will be coming to visit his colleagues.
Back to his roots: Lewis Hamilton will make a special appearance at Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM) in Brands Hatch on Sunday. For two years, he raced for the Formula 3 Euroseries and won the title in 2005. Now, Hamilton will visit his Mercedes Benz driver colleagues of the DTM. He will be performing demonstration laps in his Vodafone McLaren Mercedes MP4-23, hold an autograph session, and, of course, follow the race live and on the spot.
The Brands Hatch race will be the 50th time Mercedes-Benz and Audi have met in the DTM, since Audi joined in 2004. After 49 races Mercedes-Benz leads 31:18 in victories. The Mercedes-Benz drivers have won four out ofthe seven races in the 2008 season so far.
Brands Hatch is located in Kent. At only 1.929 kilometres long, the track is the shortest track on the 2008 DTM calendar.
Only 7 points separates the four top drivers in the season so far: Jamie Green is second with 40 points, only 4 points behind the leader Timo Scheider. Paul Di Resta, who came second at Nürburgring, is now fourth with 37 points, only one point behind Mattias Ekström. Brands Hatch is the home race for the four British Mercedes-Benz drivers in the DTM: Gary Paffett, the 2005 champion, is from Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. Jamie Green lives in Market Harborough, Leicestershire. Susie Stoddart and Paul Di Resta are Scots; Susie is from Oban and Paul lives in Bathgate.
What the racers say:
Bernd Schneider: “I look forward to Brands Hatch and with my victory last year I have good memories of this track. My win at the Nuerburgring motivates me even more. The race on the short circuit will not be an easy one; however, I am fit, well prepared and I want a podium finish.”
Jamie Green: “Completing 82 laps on this short track require one hour of maximum concentration. I look forward to my home race in front of hopefully packed grandstands.”
Head of Mercedes-Benz Motor Sport Norbert Haug: “The challenges of the less than two kilometres long Indy circuit in Brands Hatch are quite different from those recently experienced at the Nuerburgring. Apart from good speed, tactics and pit stop strategies are particularly important here, because after a couple of laps, there will be probably no situation without traffic. The race is also physically very demanding - 82 laps in a row is something you don't even see in a Formula 1 race. Lewis Hamilton's visit and his demonstration laps with his Formula 1 car are a thank you to the DTM spectators at Brands Hatch. They all can look forward to a great race and an awesome show -- with Lewis as well as with his driver colleagues in the DTM.”
The whole Pixum team is looking foward to the race at Brands Hatch on Sunday!
