Marco Wittmann takes maiden DTM pole at Zandvoort

MTEK BMW’s Marco Wittmann took his maiden DTM career pole at Zandvoort ahead of BMW stablemate, Augusto Farfus, and the Audis of Mike Rockenfeller and Timo Scheider in third and fourth.

Farfus, who is now the only man who can prevent Rockenfeller from taking the title, was favourite for pole after showing strong pace throughout free practice and qualifying.

However, 23-year-old Wittmann, who was the first driver on-track in the pole-shootout, put in a stellar lap-time of 1m30.894s to edge ahead of the Brazilian by 0.0085s and take his first DTM career pole.

Rockenfeller, who just needs a second place finish tomorrow to claim Audi’s first DTM drivers’ title since 2011, will start third ahead of Scheider, who made a mistake on his flying lap.

Farfus’ RBM team-mate, Joey Hand, qualified fifth after recording his best ever qualifying result at Zandvoort and his second best qualifying position of the season.

The American driver showed strong pace throughout all four qualifying rounds, and only just missed making it into the pole-position shootout.

Filipe Albuquerque qualified sixth, ahead of 2012 Zandvoort winner, Edoardo Mortara, and Wittmann’s BMW MTEK team-mate, Timo Glock, who finished eighth.

The Audi duo of Adrien Tambay and Miguel Molina will line up ninth and 10th.

Mattias Ekström will line up 11th after missing out on the top-10 by 0.002s.

Other former DTM champions, Gary Paffett and Bruno Spengler, also failed to make it into Q3.

Paffett was also the best placed of the Mercedes drivers after qualifying 12th, four positions ahead of Spengler’s Schnitzer run BMW in 16th.

The Canadian will also take a two-place grid penalty for his accident with Robert Wickens at Oschersleben.

Mercedes’ Christian Vietoris endured another difficult qualifying session after he was unable to make it out of Q1.

He will start tomorrow’s race 17th, one place ahead of Jamie Green who was pushed into the drop-zone by late Q1 flyers from Ekström and Molina.

Mercedes’ struggles in qualifying were also evident with Dani Juncadella, Robert Wickens and Roberto Merhi occupying 20th to 22nd positions on the grid.

Wickens’ chance to improve disappeared when he put two-wheels on the grass coming out of the Arie Luyendykbocht on his final Q1 run.

RMG BMW’s Martin Tomczyk’s nightmare 2013 continued, after the 2011 DTM champion failed to get out of the first round of qualifying for the fifth time this season.