Mike Rockenfeller takes pole in odd Moscow qualifying
Audi’s Mike Rockenfeller has taken pole position at Russian round of the DTM at the Moscow Raceway, after Q4 was cancelled.
The strange decision to cancel the final part of qualifying was taken after the Russian President, Vladmir Putin, closed the airspace above the circuit as he will be passing over in his jet within the next two hours.
As a result, this meant that the circuit’s medical helicopter unable to take off and the times set by the drivers in Q3 will define the grid.
Rockenfeller’s Q3 time of 58.423 seconds was good enough for his second pole of the season, ahead of Mattias Ekström and the BMW pairing of Augusto Farfus and reigning DTM champion, Bruno Spengler.
Gary Paffett finished the session in seventh as the best placed of the Mercedes drivers ahead of his rookie stable-mates, Pascal Wehrlein and Dani Juncadella.
Fellow Mercedes driver, Christian Vietoris, rounded out the top-10.
Abt Audi’s Adrien Tambay was unfortunate to miss out on Q3, after he failed to make it into the next session by a mere 0.003s. This saw him finish the session in 11th.
Edoardo Mortara’s difficult 2013 continued, after he, like stable-mate Tambay, failed to make out of Q2 and will line up 16th, behind BMW’s Joey Hand.
Q1 saw four BMWs drop out, with Timo Glock leading the group in 17th. The ex-Formula 1 driver will start ahead of Norisring pole-sitter, Robert Wickens, and fellow DTM driver and 2011 DTM champion, Martin Tomczyk.
DTM rookie, Marco Wittmann, will line up 20th in his BMW M3, ahead of stable-mate, Andy Priaulx and Mercedes’ Roberto Merhi who finished the session in 22nd and last.
The Spaniard was the only casualty of the qualifying hour, after he beached his C-Coupe in the gravel and clipped the barrier as a result of a spin coming out of Turn 3.
