Norisring DTM: Vietoris beats Audi duo to Saturday pole

Mercedes driver Christian Vietoris saw off Audi duo Mattias Ekstrom and Jamie Green to claim pole for the Saturday race at the Norisring.

Vietoris, who was also on pole for the Saturday race at the venue last year, established an early lead and would go unmatched until the chequered flag.

At the start of the session, Robert Wickens' best lap from Friday practice was quickly surpassed by Paul di Resta, only for the Canadian to respond by going two tenths clear with a 48.288s.

But that was only the beginning of it - after Wickens improved further to a 48.250s, Vietoris made it 48.226s, only for Ekstrom to disrupt the Mercedes dominance, going six thousandths in the clear.

However, Vietoris improved to first a 48.188s and then a 48.144s, ensuring that he would enter the pits for the mid-session tyre change as the clear leader.

The German did not improve his laptime over the rest of the session, but his existing lap proved enough for pole.

Ekstrom settled for second, with his Audi stablemate Green taking third place, the duo within just half a tenth of Vietoris.

Wickens, who had won two of the three most recent DTM races at the Norisring, settled for fourth, with Bruno Spengler an impressive fifth as the only BMW in the top 10.

Edoardo Mortara demoted di Resta to seventh with a late lap, with Lucas Auer, Mike Rockenfeller and Nico Muller making up the first five rows.

Saturday qualifying

Pos.	Driver	Car	Time
1	Christian Vietoris	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	48.144
2	Mattias Ekström	Audi RS5 DTM	48.182
3	Jamie Green	Audi RS5 DTM	48.194
4	Robert Wickens	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	48.250
5	Bruno Spengler	BMW M4 DTM	48.257
6	Edoardo Mortara	Audi RS5 DTM	48.305
7	Paul di Resta	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	48.312
8	Lucas Auer	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	48.342
9	Mike Rockenfeller	Audi RS5 DTM	48.352
10	Nico Muller	Audi RS5 DTM	48.357
11	Timo Glock	BMW M4 DTM	48.360
12	Augusto Farfus	BMW M4 DTM	48.362
13	Marco Wittmann	BMW M4 DTM	48.376
14	Maxime Martin	BMW M4 DTM	48.389
15	Adrien Tambay	Audi RS5 DTM	48.393
16	Gary Paffett	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	48.430
17	Maximilian Götz	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	48.445
18	Miguel Molina	Audi RS5 DTM	48.464
19	Timo Scheider	Audi RS5 DTM	48.491
20	Tom Blomqvist	BMW M4 DTM	48.500
21	Antonio Felix da Costa	BMW M4 DTM	48.526
22	Daniel Juncadella	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	48.538
23	Martin Tomczyk	BMW M4 DTM	48.544
24	Esteban Ocon	Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM	48.574