Joey Hand (US) and Dirk Werner (DE) joined forces to form a team at the DTM Show Event in Munich (DE) and finished fourth in Saturday’s thrilling relay competition. The pair narrowly lost out to Christian Vietoris (DE) and Gary Paffett (GB) in the race-off for third and fourth. Victory in the Olympic Stadium went to fellow Mercedes drivers Ralf Schumacher (DE) and Jamie Green (GB).
 
First up were the qualifying races between team mates, which determined the four places for the quarter finals. Spengler completed the five laps of the 0.614-kilometre circuit in 2:22.604 minutes, making him the fastest BMW driver. The Canadian was followed by Hand, Werner and Farfus, but Tomczyk and Priaulx had to sit out the rest of the action, having finished fifth and sixth fastest. This meant the pairings for the subsequent relay races were decided: Spengler was joined in one team by Farfus, while Hand would compete alongside Werner for the rest of the day.
 
The teams lined up in relay format for the quarter-finals: the first driver completed three laps before pulling into the pits to hand over the reins to his team-mate. Spengler and Farfus’s meeting with Adrien Tambay (FR) and Timo Scheider (DE) did not go to plan: leading the race, radio problems resulted in Farfus missing the changeover at the end of the third lap, so handing the win to the Audi pair. This meant it was already clear that Hand and Werner would progress to the semi-final regardless of the outcome of their duel with Vietoris and Paffett. Therefore they did not need to take any risks and the win ultimately went to Vietoris and Paffett.
 
Hand and Werner found themselves up against Tambay and Scheider in the semi-final. After an eight lap contest with the drivers changing over at halfway, the two BMW drivers lost out by just 0.871 seconds. The race-off for third place saw them pitted against Vietoris and Paffett for a second time. However, Hand and Werner were unable to take their revenge, finishing 0.721 seconds behind the Mercedes duo.

Photo: BMW