Pace shared during Brno test.

The honour of topping the times during the second of the DTM's official pre-season tests was shared between representatives of all three marques at Brno.

The result mirrored similar findings from the Estoril test in mid-March, and bodes well for a close-fought series when the new season kicks off at Hockenheim over 16-18 April.

On the first day, former grand prix driver Heinz-Harald Frentzen went fastest at the wheel of his Opel Vectra GTS V8, but was only five-thousandths of a second ahead of Opel newcomer Marcel F?ssler. On the second day, Audi drivers Mattias Ekstr?m, Tom Kristensen and Frank Biela topped the timesheets with their A4 DTMs whilst, one day later, Opel trio Laurent Aiello, Peter Dumbreck and Frentzen regained the lead.

"It's fun to drive here, because it's a fast track," Ekstrom admitted, "We worked on our set-up and found a good basis for the first race of the season."

On the final day, however, the duopoly was finally broken when last year's championship runner-up Christijan Albers set the fastest time of all four days in his AMG-Mercedes C-Class.

"We made good progress, but there is still more to come," the Dutchman said, "The C-Class offers a lot of potential and I'm looking forward to Hockenheim."

Frentzen was making his first appearance at Brno with a DTM car and reported that the Czech circuit was both picturesque and challenging.

"The track offers several exciting corners," the former F1 pilot said, "We were able to make a completely new experience because the circuit's characteristics are different from those of Estoril."