Spengler hands BMW early advantage-875

Bruno Spengler topped DTM practice at the Norisring on Saturday morning; a late flyer putting the BMW driver on top of the times.

Spengler had not been a factor for the main part of the session, with the Audis of Mattias Ekstrom and Edoardo Mortara leading the way for most of it. But the Canadian's late 48.427-second lap was enough to give the reigning champion the top spot.

Adrien Tambay was just 0.004s slower than Spengler in his Abt Audi, knocking Mortara back to third ahead of his team-mate Filipe Albuquerque and Timo Scheider's Abt machine.

Championship leader Mike Rockenfeller was seventh in his Phoenix Audi while Robert Wickens was the best Mercedes driver in 13th.

The session was largely incident-free, save for a few moments involving Dirk Werner and Roberto Merhi. Werner overshot the final corner early on, his Schnitzer BMW coming to a halt without hitting anything. Later the car stopped on the inside of the track before the same turn and had to be towed back to the pits.

Merhi had a major lock-up at The Esses with 20 minutes remaining and missed the first part of the corner. Like Werner, he did not hit anything.