Ekström and Tomczyk joins ABT

[JMeissner]

Ekström and Tomczyk joins ABT
DTM --- January 18, 2001

The Swede Mattias Ekström and the German Martin Toczyk will join regular drivers Christian ABT and Laurent Aiello in the DTM this year. The two newcomers will replace James Thompson and Kris Nissen. Mattias Ekström is from Sweden and has won the STCC 1999 with an Audi A4. In 1999 Mattias raced a couple of extra races in the STW in an ABT Audi A4 and the ABT team was very impressed. Martin Tomczyk is from Germany and comes from the German F3 championship where he finished 12:th last year. Both drivers are thrilled about this assignment and are very optimistic about the coming season. The two drivers will make their first test with the new Audi TT in a couple of weeks.

Johan Meissner,
johan@meissner.se

[hunttheshunt]

Hi johan! Did you get my e-mail-hope to have been some help. A good question is where does James Thompson go from here? Back to the BTCC?

[Invader]

Do I care....I think not.

[gomick]

what are the chances of the abt audi's being in the top 5 of dtm - they started to be more competitve in the last 2 rounds of 2000, but are they a genuine chance of running with mercedes and opel

[Invader]

They will either have had to make giant leaps forward or Merc and Opel would have to be standing still.
Do I recall a rule change which should make the TT more competitive or was that a dream?

[JMeissner]

No, unfortiunately (in one way), it wasn't a dream you had...

The series organisers has brought in new rules that will make the cars almost identical undernieth and aerodynamical. For the Audi TT it'll mean that they'll have to lengthen the car with several decimeters... Just imagin how that TT will look...

But, hey, we'll get close racing (?)