Coulthard Scores 2nd Place in Maiden DTM Test

Former Grand Prix driver David Coulthard made the best of his first official outing with Mercedes in the DTM, as he emerged as the best placed Merc driver in the timing reports of the Valencia test. The Scottish racer was only 0.059 seconds slower than Phoenix Audi's Alexandre Premat, who stopped the clock at 1:28.666.

Earlier today, we had informed you that DC was quite optimistic about a potential deal with the German manufacturer for the 2010 season of the DTM. According to the 39-year old racer – currently a pundit for BBC's F1 programme – he only needed to discuss with Merc's motorsport director Norbert Haug the final details of a potential deal.

However, in an interview with British magazine Autosport, he revealed that he needs to acquire some extra information about how it is to drive a DTM machine, which he did earlier today. And, considering that he scored a lap time more than two tenths of a second faster than highly-rated Canadian driver Bruno Spengler (the best placed Merc driver behind him in the time charts), we'd say he holds a pretty good chance of making his debut in the series this year.

Third overall in the time classification was Audi's Markus Winkelhock, while followed by Mercedes duo Bruno Spengler and newly-confirmed Ralf Schumacher. Winning Audi pair Mattias Ekstrom and Timo Scheider (double DTM champ) went on to finish 6th and 7th respectively, ahead of Susie Stoddart and Congfu Cheng.

Here are the overall results of the Valencia test, Day 1:

1. Alexandre Premat (Audi)                   1:28.666
2. David Coulthard (Mercedes)              1:28.725
3. Markus Winkelhock (Audi)                 1:28.883
4. Bruno Spengler (Mercedes)               1:28.949
5. Ralf Schumacher (Mercedes)            1:28.964
6. Mattias Ekstrom (Audi)                       1:29.127
7. Timo Scheider (Audi)                          1:29.156
8. Susie Stoddart (Mercedes)                 1:30.102
9. Congfu Cheng (Mercedes)                 1:30.235