Motor Racing: Britons Star in German Car Wars

Gary Paffett has been one of McLaren's test drivers for more than a year but the 26-year-old Englishman was bypassed in favor of Lewis Hamilton when the Formula One team chose a driver to partner Fernando Alonso for 2007. With the greatest respect to Paffett, McLaren's logic cannot be questioned and Paffett did the next best thing by returning to DTM, a championship that refers to itself, with adequate justification, as the world's most popular international touring car series.

Paffett, the 2005 DTM champion, joins four other British drivers in Nuremberg today for a potentially spectacular race in front of 140,000 fans that has a bizarre sense of occasion thanks to being held in the stadium once used by Adolf Hitler for political rallies. The sound of 20 DTM cars echoing around the imposing Reichstagsgelande may be less menacing than the Fuhrer's speeches, but the noise of the 4-litre V8 engines adds to the spectacle created by machines that, on the surface, look similar to their production counterparts but which, in reality, are aggressive racing cars. The drivers, who sit roughly where the rear seat should be, are strapped into a carbon-fibre safety cell.

The emphasis is on combining the sales of road cars with entertaining racing. Mercedes underscored the link by launching their C Class 320 four-door saloon at the Geneva motor show in March while, at the same time, wheeling out the DTM version. The fact that Susie Stoddart was at the wheel made it clear that Mercedes were prepared to use the petit 24-year-old Scotswoman for reasons other than her skill as a driver in the battle with Audi for success on and off the race track.

Qualifying follows a similar knockout system to that used in Formula One. A downpour during the first phase did not help Adam Carroll's struggle with the two-year-old Audi A4, the Ulsterman setting sixteenth fastest time to fall among the first six of the 20 starters to be eliminated. A last lap attempt by Paul di Resta in the second phase failed by 0.02 seconds to put the Scotsman into the final eight. Stoddart was also eliminated with twelfth fastest time.

The times changed continually as the remaining drivers completed their allocated eight laps, each driver waiting to go as late as possible on a drying track. Paffett gave Mercedes the first four places as he qualified 0.48 seconds behind the pole position C Class of the Canadian, Bruno Spengler. Leicester's Jamie Green was a further 0.14 seconds behind in sixth place.

The DTM's potential for close racing has been enough to tempt Mika Hakkinen from retirement, the double F1 world champion qualifying second, ahead of Bernd Schneider, the winner of the previous round at Brands Hatch.

'This is a great series; I'm really enjoying it,' said Hakkinen. 'The difference between DTM and F1 is that F1 is established - and everyone in F1 knows it. The DTM in its current format is new and everyone here wants to make it work. It's very relaxed because we want to have fun while working with cars that are nice to drive. The cars are powerful and the engines have plenty of torque. They're tricky to drive - especially on a track as bumpy as this one.

'Qualifying was really exciting. Because the track was drying we had to have quick reactions to change the car to suit the changing conditions. The layout of the track may be quite simple, but you have to brake from very high speed for the hairpin. Finding the optimum braking point is very difficult in the dry, never mind in the wet. The track was getting faster all the time, but I couldn't use that because I had traffic in the final minutes.'

Hakkinen, a veteran of 20 wins in 161 grands prix, has been impressed by the youngster who has followed the Finn's footsteps to McLaren. 'Lewis Hamilton is obviously very special,' said Hakkinen. 'He's got the right mind for what he has to do but what has impressed me is that he has arrived in F1 very fit in every respect to do the job. That's so important. I wouldn't like to be back there trying to beat him. For sure, I wouldn't want to be Fernando Alonso!'