Nurburgring DTM: Rookie Auer takes surprise pole
Mercedes driver and DTM rookie Lucas Auer claimed his maiden series pole position for Saturday's first race at the Nurburgring.
Photo by: ITR eV
The Austrian was one of the few drivers who improved their efforts in the dying moments of the 20-minute session, and with a laptime of 1m21.915s he beat BMW’s Maxime Martin at the finish line by only 0.084 seconds.
DTM championship leader Pascal Wehrlein (Mercedes) qualified third in front of Bruno Spengler (BMW) and Edoardo Mortara, the best-placed Audi driver in fifth.
Championship contender Mattias Ekstrom (Audi), however, will start only in 17th position.
Red flag after two crashes
A few minutes into the session, Mercedes driver Paul di Resta had lost control of his car and smashed into the barriers without having posted a laptime.
He managed to bring his car back to the pits with heavy damage at the left-rear, but did not go out again.
Soon after that, Adrien Tambay went head-first into the tyre barriers and had to retire from the qualifying session immediately with heavy damage, too.
The session was red-flagged with 12 minutes to go and restarted after a 10 minute break.
Qualifying results:
Pos. | Driver | Car | Time | Gap |
1 | Lucas Auer | Mercedes | 1'21.915 | |
2 | Maxime Martin | BMW | 1'21.999 | 0.084 |
3 | Pascal Wehrlein | Mercedes | 1'22.030 | 0.115 |
4 | Bruno Spengler | BMW | 1'22.032 | 0.117 |
5 | Edoardo Mortara | Audi | 1'22.068 | 0.153 |
6 | Maximilian Gotz | Mercedes | 1'22.072 | 0.157 |
7 | Jamie Green | Audi | 1'22.073 | 0.158 |
8 | Mike Rockenfeller | Audi | 1'22.089 | 0.174 |
9 | Dani Juncadella | Mercedes | 1'22.120 | 0.205 |
10 | Miguel Molina | Audi | 1'22.121 | 0.206 |
11 | Tom Blomqvist | BMW | 1'22.151 | 0.236 |
12 | Marco Wittmann | BMW | 1'22.156 | 0.241 |
13 | Robert Wickens | Mercedes | 1'22.223 | 0.308 |
14 | Gary Paffett | Mercedes | 1'22.242 | 0.327 |
15 | Nico Muller | Audi | 1'22.338 | 0.423 |
16 | Augusto Farfus | BMW | 1'22.365 | 0.450 |
17 | Mattias Ekstrom | Audi | 1'22.372 | 0.457 |
18 | Timo Glock | BMW | 1'22.381 | 0.466 |
19 | Timo Scheider | Audi | 1'22.536 | 0.621 |
20 | Antonio Felix da Costa | BMW | 1'22.574 | 0.659 |
21 | Christian Vietoris | Mercedes | 1'22.712 | 0.797 |
- | Martin Tomczyk | BMW | - | |
- | Paul Di Resta | Mercedes | - | |
- | Adrien Tambay | Audi | - |
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