Photo: DTM Media

Christian Vietoris claims maiden DTM career pole at Lausitzring

Mercedes’ Christian Vietoris has put Mercedes back on pole for the first time since the Norisring last season after taking his maiden DTM career pole position at the Lausitzring.

He will start ahead of HWA team-mate, Gary Paffett, and Abt Sportsline’s Jamie Green who claimed his best grid slot of the season by finished third and the best of the Audis.

As of the first round of qualifying, the Mercedes C-Coupes appeared to be on top of the qualifying issues which have beleaguered them in the first three rounds of the year, with the HWA prepared cars of Gary Paffett, Christian Vietoris and Robert Wickens finishing 1-2-3 in three of today’s four qualifying sessions.

Throughout the hour, Paffett appeared to be the quickest of the Mercedes drivers, but locked up going into Turn 1 on his Q4 lap which handed the advantage to Vietoris.

HWA team-mate, Robert Wickens, will line up fourth after he also made a mistake on his hot-lap.

Spielberg winner and reigning DTM champion, Bruno Spengler, will line up as the best placed of the BMWs in fifth, after missing out on the pole-position shoot out by a mere 0.010s.

His main championship rival, Audi’s Mike Rockenfeller, will lead an Audi 6-7-8 ahead of stablemate Adrien Tambay who snuck into Q3 by a mere 6,000ths of a second from Mercedes rookie Pascal Wehrlein, and Edoardo Mortara.

Roberto Merhi will line up ninth ahead of BMW’s Augusto Farfus.

However, the Brazilian will have to take a five place grid drop due to having not using a specified set of tyres in this morning’s practice session.

As a result, the Hockenheim season opener winner will start 15th and sees Wehrlein move into P10.

Mattias Ekstrom’s difficult season continued after failing to make it through Q1, as did Abt team-mate, Timo Scheider. Both former DTM champions will line up 17th and 18th.

Q1 also claimed another former DTM title winner; Martin Tomczyk. The 2011 champion’s 2013 nightmare continued at the Lausitzring due to a broken splitter on his RMG-BMW M3. He will line up 22nd and last behind team-mate, Andy Priaulx, due to a broken splitter.

Audi’s Miguel Molina also had a tough session after failing to make it through to the second qualifying round due to a gearbox problem.