Tough time for Opel at EuroSpeedway.

Opel endured one of its most difficult weekends in recent times in the DTM series as Lausitz as only one of the teams car managed to finish inside the top ten in the second race of the year.

Opel's struggle began in testing on Friday, when Marcel F?ssler was the fastest Vectra GTS in 13th in the first session, while Heinz-Harald Frentzen was the best Opel driver in 12th in the second period. F?ssler made a step forward on Saturday morning, and although he was only 12th fastest, he was less than half a second off the quickest time.

The Swiss ace made another performance jump in qualifying, his ninth best time landing him a spot in the all-important Super Pole session. Another good lap produced an eighth place starting position; an excellent result given the situation.

"We failed to make best use of the tyres in testing, so we changed several things on the car for qualifying," said F?ssler. "This was enough to at least make the Super Pole. But there is still a lot of work to do."

However motorsport chief Volker Strycek was unhappy with the performance of the other Opel men.

"I am unhappy about our positions," he said. "Marcel did a fantastic job to achieve a position in the first four rows, but our other drivers are too far back. We were not able to get good lap times on new tyres, and we have to work on this. Our performance is not right."

Former ITC champion Manuel Reuter missed out on Super Pole by less than two-tenths of a second, and would start 15th, with Frentzen 17th and the final Opel, that of 2002 DTM champion Laurent Aiello, in 20th.

After a positive morning warm-up session, F?ssler made a bad start in the race, dropping to tenth position on the opening lap. He became stuck behind the Audi of Frank Stippler and opted for an early first pitstop, but was unable to profit from this when he was tapped into a spin by an ambitious move from Audi's Allan McNish on lap 23, costing him a huge amount of time as he recovered. McNish was forced to retire due the collision, but F?ssler rejoined to gain more data, finishing 13th.

Reuter was busy working his way through the pack when he spun in the midst of a big battle, losing three laps while he was towed out of a gravel trap, while Frentzen was also delayed when a right-rear wheelnut jammed during his first pitstop. He would finish directly behind F?ssler in 14th, while Reuter was classified 16th.

Aiello was the top Opel runner, battling his way through from last position on the grid, the Frenchman grabbed tenth position on the very last lap.

"Finishing 10th from 20th on the grid is not bad, and it showed we were on the pace in the race, but the weekend has been disappointing on the whole," the former BTCC champion said after the race. "We have been working on the problems with using the new tyres, and hopefully we can have a better weekend in Spa."

Summing up the race, Strycek admitted it had been a frustrating weekend.

"It was just not our weekend here," he said. "F?ssler was the only one of our drivers who could have scored a point, but he was pushed off. Laurent did a very good job to come through the field, but we just didn't have enough speed here, and the result reflects that."