Lucas Auer has taken the pole position for the opening race of 2017 DTM championship at Hockenheim, Baden-Württenberg. The Austrian driver has imposed his performance ahead of Mercedes team mates, Gary Paffett and Edoardo Mortara.
The first qualifying session of the DTM wasn’t the best for Audi who early on saw how Mattias Ekström spun. The Swede who is doing a double program this weekend with DTM and RallyCross, finally finished in 17th place.
A complicated qualifying session for Audi, with Ekström team mate, Nico Müller been the quickest for the German brand in 8th position.
In the other hand, BMW who struggled in practice, they improved his performance with Timo Glock almost taking the pole position. Former Formula 1 driver lost 3 tenths of second, due to a mistake in the last corner. He finished as BMW highest driver in 4th place, just in front of team mate, Maxime Martin.
But the battle for pole position was between the Mercedes drivers. In the first half of the session, Gary Paffett imposed his pace. The Briton then improved his lap time in the latest minutes of the session but, he couldn’t avoid an excellent lap from Lucas Auer who took the pole position by 2 tenths over Williams F1 reserve driver.
In third position finished Edoardo Mortara who in his first official qualifying with Mercedes, struggled in the first half of the session but, in the final minutes, a mistake in sector 3 destroyed his chances to take the pole position.
Results:
1 Auer 2 Paffet
3 Mortara 4 Glock
5 Martin 6 Di Resta
7 Engel 8 Müller
9 Blomqvist 10 Wickens
11 Wittmann 12 Green
13 Spengler 14 Rast
15 Farfus 16 Rockenfeller
17 Ekström 18 Duval
