Method for detecting a closing time point of a valve having a coil drive and having a movable valve element which interacts with a valve seat in order to open and close the valve, wherein the coil drive comprises: - an electromagnetic stator with a field coil - and a movable armature which is spaced apart from the stator in an inoperative position and is coupled to the movable valve element in such a way that it causes the valve to open in the event of an armature movement by lifting the valve element out of the valve seat; comprising the steps of: - impressing an electrical voltage into the field coil for a limited time in order to generate a field current through said field coil, as a result of which the movable armature is attracted so as to form an armature movement and lifts the valve element out of its valve seat, - allowing the field current to decay to zero, - then sampling and reading out the voltage profile (U(t)) across the field coil with respect to time in the form of value pairs (t(k); U(k)) which each comprise a time value (t(k)) and a voltage value (U(k)); - transforming the identified voltage values and time values by forming a logarithm x (k):=log b t(k) and y(k):=c·log b (U(k)) with a base b and with a constant c in order to form a transformed function y(x) comprising value pairs (x(k); y(k)); - then numerically deriving the transformed function so as to form a derivative function δ x: = Δ y x Δ x; - detecting a transformed time value x close, which corresponds to the closing time point t close of the valve, on the basis of the derivative function of a predetermined threshold value S (x) being undershot δ ( x close) ≤ S ( x); - calculating the closing time point t close by back-transformation t close = b* close. - an electromagnetic stator with a field coil - and a movable armature which is spaced apart from the stator in an inoperative position and is coupled to the movable valve element in such a way that it causes the valve to open in the event of an armature movement by lifting the valve element out of the valve seat; comprising the steps of: - impressing an electrical voltage into the field coil for a limited time in order to generate a field current through said field coil, as a result of which the movable armature is attracted so as to form an armature movement and lifts the valve element out of its valve seat, - allowing the field current to decay to zero, - then sampling and reading out the voltage profile (U(t)) across the field coil with respect to time in the form of value pairs (t(k); U(k)) which each comprise a time value (t(k)) and a voltage value (U(k)); - transforming the identified voltage values and time values by forming a logarithm x (k):=log b t(k) and y(k):=c·log b (U(k)) with a base b and with a constant c in order to form a transformed function y(x) comprising value pairs (x(k); y(k)); - then numerically deriving the transformed function so as to form a derivative function δ x: = Δ y x Δ x; - detecting a transformed time value x close, which corresponds to the closing time point t close of the valve, on the basis of the derivative function of a predetermined threshold value S (x) being undershot δ ( x close) ≤ S ( x); - calculating the closing time point t close by back-transformation t close = b* close.