Gary was on course for his fourth victory in this year's DTM touring car series until the race stewards decided otherwise, giving him a drive-through penalty for clipping the white line at the exit of the pit lane following his second mandatory pit stop. Despite a storming recovery drive to third place, the decision meant Gary lost the lead of the championship to arch-rival Mattias Ekstrom, who inherited victory.

Before the penalty, Gary had driven superbly from pole position and skillfully judged the conditions, which started wet and then dried out. Gary was 4.3secs ahead of Ekstrom before the penalty, but 9.3secs behind when he rejoined. He halved that gap in just 12 laps, but fourth was the best he could manage.

Gary had a solid start to the weekend, posting the fifth and seventh fastest times respectively in Friday's test sessions. "We started off with a very good set-up. The changing conditions meant it was difficult to judge just how we compared, especially in the second session on Friday when it kept raining and drying out. I was quickest in the first two sectors of the lap, and I was especially pleased with the handling in the wet."

Saturday's hour of free practice didn't go to plan, however, which meant that qualifying was going to be a tricky affair. Gary said: "We struggled with the stability of the rear of the car on Saturday morning, but were reasonably happy with the set-up going into qualifying. The Audis looked the quickest cars at this point, although we were close."

In the opening pre-qualifying session, Audi dominated with the two fastest times for Ekstrom and his team-mate Tom Kristensen. Gary was third fastest, but turned it on when it really mattered in the single-lap Super Pole session. He scored his fourth pole position from just seven races!

"We were struggling to get heat into the tyres in the first session and things didn't look too good," said Gary. "But we made changes to the tyre pressures. But despite a small mistake in the Super Pole I took pole by a quarter of a second, which was brilliant. Mika Hakkinen made it a Mercedes 1-2 and the Audis were suddenly going a lot slower."

After starting from behind the safety car, due to a pre-race rain shower, Gary pulled away at the front of the pack. He pitted to change from wet to slick tyres at the end of lap 10 and rejoined with a 2sec lead over Hakkinen, which he extended to over 4secs in three laps. But when he pitted for a second time on lap 25, the race stewards said Gary had crossed a painted white line at the exit of the pits, and would be given a drive-through penalty, which cost about 15secs.

"I don't remember crossing the line, so I was quite surprised when I saw the penalty board," said Gary. "But I had to accept it, and I have to apologise to all the team, because this was a race we should have won by a long way."

He rejoined in fourth place, but passed Hakkinen for third on the penultimate lap. Ekstrom's victory means he takes over from Gary as championship leader, but the gap is just one point with four rounds remaining.

"I've been in a position to win at every race this year," said Gary. "I'm going to the next race at Zandvoort to do exactly what I should have done here - win the race."